Good day
In today's message we'll be taking a brief look at some of the other benefits made available to us because of God's gift of righteousness.
It's important to point out that when the Word of God says, that we are children of God, joint heirs with Christ and seated with Him in heavenly places (and have access to all of the other benefits listed below), that this is not based on one's feelings at a given moment in time or allowing our emotions to dictate whether this is true or not. This is something we do by faith. That is why the Bible calls us to walk by faith and not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7). This means that we believe that this belongs to us - That this is who we are when our spirits get born-again (John 3:1-21) - That we have a right to access, experience and walk in all of these, again, not because of anything we've done, but simply because we believe on Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. Amen
As we've previously discussed, righteousness is a gift from God that we receive by faith in Jesus Christ. Through righteousness, we have right-standing with God, which gives us access to God’s presence and the right to be in covenant with Him. This is first and foremost the greatest benefit or blessing available to us; and the way we get to know God and experience this relationship with Him, is through the Holy Spirit:
Romans 8:14-16
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
... So because of God's gift of righteousness, the following is made available to us:
- We get to be filled with the Holy Spirit and enjoy His fellowship, getting to know Him more intimately and partner with Him to accomplish great exploits for the kingdom of God (John 16:7-15, John 14:15-26, Ephesians 1:4-14, 1 Corinthians 6:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14, Romans 8:1-17, 26, Acts 1:8, Acts 2:38, 1 Corinthians 12:1-13, Ephesians 5:18-20, Galatians 5:16-25, 2 Corinthians 2:6-16, Isaiah 11:2)
- Sin does not have dominion over us (Romans 6:5-22) - meaning we no longer have to be enslaved to sin. The more we grow in our relationship with God, the less likely we will want to intentionally engage, and knowingly practise, sin.
- Peace with God has been restored (Romans 5:1, Ephesians 2:11-18)
- We have been made alive spiritually (Ephesians 2:1-10, Romans 6:8-11)
- We are children of God (1 John 3:1, Ephesians 1:5, Ephesians 2:19)
- We have been granted citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20)
- We can approach God confidently in prayer (Ephesians 3:12, 1 John 5:13-15, Hebrews 4:14-16, James 1:5-8, James 5:13-18, John 14:10-14, John 16:23-24)
- We have been delivered from the power of darkness (Colossians 1:13–14)
- We are children of God, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:16,17)
- God has seated us with Christ in heavenly places (Ephesians 1:20-22, 2:4–7)
Now each of the above would probably require a series on its own to fully cover all of the revelation contained therein, therefore the above is just a short description of some of the benefits available to us because we have received the gift of righteousness (to list them all would be to retype the entire Bible!). This gift from God is a wonderful privilege, and something we should be thankful for on a daily basis, as the only reason we can get to experience all of the above is because of God's mercy, forgiveness, patience, grace, faithfulness and love towards us. Thank you Lord
It's important to remember that even though all of this is freely available, righteousness only positions us to be able to access all of these benefits, it's still up to us to believe it by faith and act on the word of God/put this into practice.
It's like someone giving us the keys to a gym. In this gym you'll find every piece of equipment you could ever need. Righteousness is like the keys to the gym, it gives us access, but actually making use of the equipment - that's up to us.
Here's another important point, that gym came at a cost - even if we never make use of the gym, making all of that equipment available to us still came at a cost to somebody - and this example could be used to describe our free gift of righteousness in that it cost Jesus Christ His life (1 Peter 18-21). He died on a cross, shed His blood and paid the price for our sins so that we could be made righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21) and enjoy all the benefits that come along with that. (Romans 5:17) ... Therefore even though there's the gratitude and appreciation for what Christ has done for us, the fact that Jesus gave His life for this means there's also the expectation to learn, grow and develop in our relationship with God (this we'll cover in more detail in the next message)
Amen