Category: righteousness

Order My Steps #7

Thursday, July 21, 2022

“Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me” (Psalm 119:133 KJV).

May we share the Psalmist’s wish!

The Lord ordered the Apostle Paul’s steps in this the Dispensation of the Grace of God. “Paul, here in Romans chapters 1–6 are the principles of grace for victorious Christian living as a member of the Church the Body of Christ.” However, by the time of chapter 7, Paul personally struggled to overcome his sinful flesh like us all. Why?

Remember, before he was the Apostle Paul, he was Saul of Tarsus. Having been born and raised in the Dispensation of Law as a strict works-religion Pharisee (Acts 23:6; Acts 26:4,5; Philippians 3:3-7), a great deal of Paul’s life as a saint was spent trying to stop thinking like a legalistic lost person. Being Scriptural was not enough, for the Law of Moses (Scripture!) was no longer in effect. God was doing something different—the Dispensation of Grace. To fall back on prior Divine revelation was to fight against the Lord’s current work. We must be Scriptural and dispensational. Since Paul reverted to the Law system, he wound up in the pitiful, miserable condition of Romans 7:24: “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Like many poor souls under the heavy hand of works-religion today, Paul was utterly defeated, troubled, and unhappy. His Christian life was nonfunctional.

Consider the Galatian saints, and the Bible Book that bears their name. They too grew up in works-religion—albeit heathenism or pagan idolatry. Paul visited them and shared the Gospel of Grace with them. They passed from death to life by trusting Jesus’ finished crosswork. Alas, legalistic teachers subsequently misled them, necessitating Paul’s epistle to them. “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?” (Galatians 4:9). They too had strayed from the path of grace, returned to works-religion, and become entrapped and depressed! “Where is then the blessedness [happiness, joy] ye spake of?” (Galatians 4:15a).

Whether Paul, or the Galatians, or even us, remembering our identity in Christ is the key to successful Christian living….

Order My Steps #6

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

“Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me” (Psalm 119:133 KJV).

May we share the Psalmist’s wish!

“But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23). As a slave is purchased out of a marketplace, so Jesus Christ’s shed blood paid for our release from being “in Adam” (sin’s authority). As believers—people in Christ—we do not have to sin!

When we sin, it is because we have reverted to our old (lost/natural man) thinking patterns (Romans chapter 7!). We believe we are still in Adam, dead in trespasses and sins (which we are not). “I beseech [ask, beg] you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice [who we are in Christ!], holy [who we are in Christ!], acceptable unto God [who we are in Christ!], which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:1,2).

The basic principles of grace living, Romans chapters 1–8, correct our erroneous mindset. We begin thinking like the people we are (saints), and we cease thinking like the people we are not (sinners). If we Christians do not have a clear understanding of these Bible truths, it is the equivalent of lost people with no Bible whatsoever. Since spiritual ignorance often prevails, even among professing believers, Christians typically resemble non-Christians.

Instead of “I must do good works to receive God’s blessings” (Law, works-religion), the Christian life is “I have already received God’s blessings in Christ, and good works flow from that position” (grace living!). “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). “Hath blessed” is the present perfect tense. God blessed us in Christ (past tense) the moment we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, and the results impact us right now (presently)….

Order My Steps #5

Tuesday, July 19, 2022

“Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me” (Psalm 119:133 KJV).

May we share the Psalmist’s wish!

Saints, not only have we died with Christ, we have resurrected with Him (Romans 6:1-10). “Likewise reckon [think, believe it to be true!] ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (verse 11). In Christ, we are dead to sin: the Adamic nature, as far as God is concerned, is powerless over us. So then, why do we sin as believers in Christ? The Bible has already answered that question.

The Apostle Paul’s Christian life died—this is functional death, separation from being active—in Romans chapter 7. “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me” (verses 9-11). Paul tried so hard to live the Christian life—but failed miserably! Where there should have been victory over sin, there was just the opposite. His sin nature, his Adamic nature, constantly overcame him. Two billion church members in Christendom needlessly struggle with that dilemma even now. Like Paul, they have ignored the truths laid out in chapter 6!

“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for [because] you are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14). Our flesh, Adamic nature, or sin nature, likes to boast, so it gravitates toward religious works. We deceive ourselves—yea, sin deceives us—into thinking we can manage sin. Even today, it is claimed: “I can keep the commandments of God. Give me rules and regulations to obey and I will copy the life of Jesus Christ.” This is precisely Israel’s faulty reasoning at Mount Sinai. They supposed they could perform in religion to make themselves God’s kingdom of priests (see Exodus 19:3-8, especially verse 8). God ultimately gave them the Law to point out their need for the Saviour, though (like today!) most never actually learned that lesson. Currently, however, God has us under the Dispensation of Grace, that the Law not be an occasion for our flesh to master us….

Order My Steps #4

Monday, July 18, 2022

“Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me” (Psalm 119:133 KJV).

May we share the Psalmist’s wish!

The Law system has no (!) power to stop sin. It can only (!) indicate our sin, thereby teaching us we need a Saviour: “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster [teacher] to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24). “But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;…” (1 Timothy 1:8-10).

When we Christians use the Law system for daily living, we are treading on destructive, deadly mines! Romans 7:4-11: “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence [lust, desire]. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.”

Grace, not law, teaches us how to live….

Order My Steps #3

Sunday, July 17, 2022

“Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me” (Psalm 119:133 KJV).

May we share the Psalmist’s wish!

“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:24-26).

To be “justified” is to have imputed righteousness, considered just as if you have never sinned. Stated another way, Jesus Christ’s righteousness (how He measured up to God’s perfect standard of rightness) can be applied to our individual accounts. Be sure to notice this is “freely” given us—without cost to us—because Jesus Christ has paid the price for our sins by shedding His sinless blood. The fully-satisfying payment or sacrifice (“propitiation”) was He Himself offered on Calvary’s cross. He took upon Himself Father God’s wrath against our sins: He was our substitute. If we truly believe that message—that is, believe it in our hearts—Christ’s righteousness is credited to us.

Moving into chapter 6 of Romans, we learn the fundamentals of victorious Christian living. What is eternal life in Christ like? How does our new identity in Him affect our earthly, daily conduct? Verses 1-4: “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

When Christ died for our sins, we died with Him. (This is how Father God sees it!) In Adam, we were spiritually dead, severed from God’s life. However, in Christ, we are dead to (separated from) Adam and his fallen identity. We are now alive with Christ’s very life….

Liberated to Serve

Monday, July 4, 2022

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13 KJV).

Today, as we in the United States celebrate the 246th anniversary of our nation’s independence, we invite our Christian brethren worldwide to rejoice with us concerning our freedom in Jesus Christ.

When we proclaim Romans 6:14—“Ye are not under the law, but under grace”—people tend to assume “loose living.” Does “grace living” really mean we can now live any way we want? Lest anyone be misled in that regard, God the Holy Spirit moved the Apostle Paul to write in the next verse, “What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid [May God never let that happen!]” (Romans 6:15). Grace living is not Law-keeping, but it certainly is not Law-breaking either.

God still cares how we live, albeit He is not operating the “weak and beggarly” system of “bondage” (Law) that He once did with Israel (Galatians 4:9). God proved to the entire world that since Israel could not keep His commandments perfectly, no other sons of Adam (the Gentiles) could either: “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them [Israel] who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world [Gentiles] may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19).

We sinners cannot keep the Law. However, God in His grace provided us a way to escape that condemnation by sending Jesus Christ to offer Himself on Calvary’s cruel cross to pay for our sins. By simple faith in Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection as the fully-satisfying payment for our sins, we can now be “made the righteousness of God in [Christ]” (2 Corinthians 5:21). We can be delivered from the penalty of sin (hell and the lake of fire) and the power of sin (flesh-walking).

Why are we Christians free? To selfishly live any way we want? NO! Today’s Scripture says we are liberated to now serve others, especially our Christian brethren, just as Jesus Christ selflessly served His Father and selflessly died on our behalf. That is grace living!!!!

Please see our 2011 Fourth of July Bible study “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land,” which can be watched here or read here.

Frozen in Death #5

Saturday, June 18, 2022

“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13 KJV).

What priceless lesson can we learn from today’s Scripture?

Read Matthew 21:18-22 and Mark 11:12-14,20-26. On the Monday before His Thursday crucifixion, Christ Jesus was near Jerusalem when He encountered a fig tree “and found nothing thereon, but leaves only” (Matthew 21:19; Mark 11:13). Here was Israel’s religious system symbolized—advertising its superficial “greeneries” (alleged “life”) but, upon closer examination, utterly fruitless inside (spiritually dead and therefore useless to God)! In fact, this narrative of the fig tree is presented in conjunction with the Lord purging the polluted Jerusalem Temple of Satan’s emissaries (see Matthew 21:12-17 and Mark 11:15-19). You can also compare it to The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree in Luke 13:6-9, Christ seeking fruit (faith and good works) in national Israel but finding none during His three-year earthly ministry.

Let us ponder another illustration. Imagine a dead tree with bare branches, with neither leaves nor fruit. We can glue green leaves to it, and hang ripe fruit from it—but that nice external appearance does not detract from the fact that tree is lifeless. Religion is dead, so it cannot produce the life of God. Think of yet another analogy. We can take a dirty, dead battery and clean it with soap and water—but it is still powerless. Religion has no power, so it cannot produce the works of God.

Victorious Christian living occurs when we are “strengthened with might by [God’s] Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in [our] hearts by faith…” (Ephesians 3:16,17). If we are alive in Jesus Christ, it is His life, and He will produce fruit: “Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11). “Not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart” (Ephesians 6:6). We learn and believe the principles of grace outlined in Romans through Philemon, thereby eschewing spiritual hypocrisy, duplicity, and immobility!

Believing Unbelievers #7

Tuesday, March 29, 2022

“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man” (John 2:23-25 KJV).

Is it possible to be a believing unbeliever? According to today’s Scripture, YES!

We can fool people some of the time, but we can fool God none of the time. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). The Holy Bible penetrates down to our innermost being, for it is the means whereby the God of the Bible evaluates just what ideas our heart entertains and exactly what plans our heart devises.

Dear friends, let us never forget to avoid religious hypocrisy at all costs. To appear to be a Christian, to sound like a Christian, but still be “in Adam” instead of being “in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17) does not deceive the Lord! He knows it is not Christ’s life in us but our flesh copying or mimicking. A denomination or theological system has been formed in us, but not Christ (Galatians 4:19). The internal, not the external, is what carries the greatest weight in eternity. Indeed, it is entirely possible to be the most pious soul on Earth—the world’s most dedicated church member, incumbered with innumerable rules and regulations—and still wind up going to eternal damnation, for believing in the head is no substitute for believing in the heart.

To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in the heart means we have already learned and admitted our performance is insufficient and always will be. In our heart, we have reckoned as true our need for the Saviour and all that He has done and all that He can do for us at Calvary’s cross. Ultimately, it is His life in us, “That Christ may dwell in [our] hearts by faith…” (Ephesians 3:17). May we be believing (heart) believers, not believing (head) unbelievers. Remember, God knows the difference! 🙂

Believing Unbelievers #6

Monday, March 28, 2022

“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man” (John 2:23-25 KJV).

Is it possible to be a believing unbeliever? According to today’s Scripture, YES!

While advantageous (when compared to ignorance), being knowledgeable of Bible truth in and of itself does not automatically guarantee one has a right standing before God. For example, consider this startling passage: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:21-23).

Did they not address Jesus as “Lord?” Did they not perform “good” deeds? They preached, cast out devils, and did “many wonderful works”—and even gave Jesus (not Satan) all the credit. Despite this, He rejects them, telling them He has never had an intimate relationship with them. Moreover, He remarks, “Ye that work iniquity [evil, wickedness]!” They had spiritual light, but they were deceived because they did not genuinely receive it and actually believe it in the heart. It was intellectualism and fleshliness, religious busyness, but not God’s work in and through them. Unfortunately, Hell and the Lake of Fire will be packed with billions of such souls. They sat in church buildings and attended Bible studies for decades, seeing and hearing God’s Word over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. They looked like and talked like believers. Yet, no personal faith in the heart was ever exercised in Christ Jesus’ finished crosswork at Calvary.

They knew of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it was far better for them to have known Him, or, rather, for Him to have known them….

Believing Unbelievers #5

Sunday, March 27, 2022

“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man” (John 2:23-25 KJV).

Is it possible to be a believing unbeliever? According to today’s Scripture, YES!

The opening verses of Acts chapter 8 report the Evangelist Philip’s ministry in Samaria. However, Satan is working here too! “[9] But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: [10] To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. [11] And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. [12] But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. [13] Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done.” Be sure to note verse 13, “Simon himself believed also.”

When the Apostles Peter and John subsequently visited Samaria, Simon saw their miracle-working power and offered to pay them to receive their spiritual influence (see verses 14-19). Verses 20,21: “But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter: for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.” Whereas Simon had “believed” (verse 13), the Holy Spirit through Peter condemned Simon’s heart as wicked. Like those of today’s Scripture, carnal or fleshly Simon believed in his head, but his heart was void of faith. Remember, Romans 10:10, “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness….” Religious intellectualism, superficial mental agreement, is not true faith. Genuine faith is our heart or soul trusting God’s Word….

Our latest Bible Q&A: “What does ‘listeth’ mean?”