I love 1 Corinthians 1:30. It states: "But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption..." Boy oh boy, I seriously need all 4 of these things!
Wisdom! I can do and have done some truly stupid things. And guess, what, I've repeated a whole lot of them. I'm even still doing some of them. But praise God if I'll let Him, He will direct me, because He is made unto me wisdom, and His is perfect!
Righteousness! I know myself well enough to know that Paul is absolutely right, that is in me, my flesh, there is nothing good. (Rom.7:18) And if he said that about himself, then there's no need for me to waste a second looking in myself, there's just nothing good in God's perfect sight there. My so-called righteous acts on their own are so tainted with self-interest that they're filthy rags to God. But praise Him again, He is made unto me righteousness! In fact He IS my righteousness! (See Jer.23:5-6)
Sanctification! We all like to be called special, in the sense of set apart from the pack, like we have certain possessions that mean a lot to us so we set them aside for special use. In Christ, we're set apart for God! Also, according to Romans 8:29-30, in God's eyes because we're in Christ, we're already perfected!
Redemption! He bought me back out of the slave-market of sin and death! I had really made a mess of it all, and because of His sheer love for me and you, at Calvary He just gave His own dear Life for us! The whole process is His, we can just sit back and rest in Him! Of course we have holy work to do, but He does it through us if we'll just let Him. (Matt.11:28-30). What wonderful truth! I just HAD to share it with you. May the Lord bless you all.
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2 comments:
Short and definitely sweet! Great post!
Believing we are righteous apart from works is only possible to the person who believes that they are forgiven.
The person who believes they are forgiven once for all will experience a "justification from all things," as their mindset is no longer upon the Law of Moses that makes one sin conscious.
Forgiveness comes first (Acts 13:38) and then the forgiveness believed brings peace to the person now experiencing the reality of justified from all things (Acts 13:39).
A person who does not believe they are forgiven will not believe they are simultaneously righteous, and the person who does not believe they are righteous will not believe they are forgiven of all sins.
We truly have been made a new creation in Christ Jesus that has nothing to do our contributions. He truly is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
Blessing!
Dave
Thanks for your encouragement bro. Dave! His grace becomes sweeter to me everyday!
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