3rd August 2017

True Righteousness is a gift which naturally works out through a heart life surrender to Jesus Christ, and surrender to our patient encouraging Father. It governs the tongue and the words we use. This is important to the songsmith, the writer, the preacher, teacher and any son of God who talks to anyone. We have been given the Life of Jesus to live from instead of our own selfish effort, and His righteousness is not only a part of who we have been given to be before God, His righteousness is His Powerful Life force inside us that we can align with.

This starts with a decision. Decide to naturally live in His righteousness and as you do, surrender to Him, thanking Him for His righteousness to stand in and live in. Don’t allow filthiness to persuade you that you need to talk and think its language to be relevant to those you wish to reach. You are no longer a captive to the cultures of the world, you are a Son of God who is created to be a game changer and culture changer. Jesus told us to be salt and light to the world (Matthew 6). If salt loses its savour, then it loses its function. Light which is dimmed or darkened does not pierce the shadows. White mixed with black just becomes grey, and both have lost their true character.

Sons of God are not designed to be captives to the world, but to graciously rule their surrounding culture in the world they find themselves in and bring change. These are the “kings and priests” in what they do. (*1)  Righteousness without graciousness becomes rules and laws and the love of God becomes dimmed within us.

These are those who are prepared to engage with their Father in heaven, to live in relationship with Him as their loving Father, and see all things from His perspective. Acting on what they see, with Him working alongside them, not from a distance.

As their grasp of His perspective grows they begin to work with Him as Jesus did.

Relationship with Him is everything. It is more important than mission and more important than work culture, Christian culture and any other culture you can name. Our Dad’s point of view and His culture of heaven must intersect and change the cultures around us to bring about the manifestations of the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus talked and taught about. (*2)

This is His work and His mission that we also engage in just as our King did. “You will do what I do and more,” He said. How those words ring in our ears and how we have striven to do His works as we imagine them and structure them. (*3)

We have works-based Christianity all around us, and serving is the core value. We usually do that because we get involved with some sort of mission based Christianity which is all about being a servant to the mission. When we change to relationship with Dad based Christianity then relationship with Him becomes core and all else comes out of that. Serving changes completely when it comes out of a viable relationship with our Father. What we must focus on is being gracious as we see this transition, because otherwise we become judgemental and lose the salt value.

Jesus talked about Dad. He talked about what He is like. How generous and caring He really is, but we keep looking at him through the lens of our earthly experience of fathers and others in authority, when He is not like them. Some of us need healing and a deeper revelation of God our Father. If you think that is you, then ask Him (to heal and rewrite your heart) and receive. He will give you the good life heart bread, not the stony heart of self. (*4)

Relationships are not made viable by being passive about them. All good relationships need some effort put in continuously. Press in to relationship with Dad that is not based on what you do for Him, but on accepting His love for you and feel the change on the inside. When works and performance stop and we rest in Him, everything changes. (*5)

Now we naturally love others.

Now we naturally live out His righteousness and what we know of His perspective.

We are completed by Him and that peaceful reality flows out of us in every fulfilling way. (*6, *7, *8). Selah.

Applying this in everyday life

When it comes to putting all of this into practice, there are tools that you and I have learned over our time as Christians that are pure gold for us. Every one of us is a bit different in our make up, however some of the tools we use are shared experiences for quite a few like praise and worship music. Some use quiet times, others walk in the bush or on the beach. Whatever works for you, use it every day and ask Dad to show you more. (*9)

This is all about cultivating useful habits of Godliness that will carry us through the day. What I mean by that is developing ways that we can use on the inside so we can walk them through all the other things we need to do through the day. A heart of praise will sing away inside through everything else we are involved in. A habit of thankfulness will be thanking Dad and Jesus quietly on the inside for everything that happens (both positive things and negative things). This is keeping our focus in the right places so that when the struggles with spiritual wickedness come into our space we can easily defeat them, holding onto His righteousness. (*10)

Affirmation is a tool we use which works to push back at worldly reality. This is when we speak to ourselves and into the spirit around us things like “Ï am the righteousness of God in Christ” or “Jesus is alive and well and living in Me”. Most of these things I am talking about we will activate silently but sometimes forcefully on the inside of us. The people around you don’t need to know what you are really doing until it is time for them to surrender to Jesus and walk His path. As a son of God you appear “normal” until He chooses to reveal to someone that you are supernatural. This is part of resting in our Dad and ceasing striving to be, by choosing to follow His leadings and promptings instead. Some of us need to explore this part of relationship with Him more and become better at picking up on His cues. (*11, 12)

Questions or comments? - please feel free to use the contact part of this website, thanks.

Footnotes:

1) Revelation 1:6; and made us kings and priests to God and His Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Revelation 5:10 And You made us kings and priests to our God, and we will reign over the earth.

2) John 5:19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing of Himself but what He sees the Father do. For whatever things He does, these also the Son does likewise.

3) John 14:12 Truly, truly, I say to you, He who believes on Me, the works that I do he shall do also, and greater works than these he shall do, because I go to My Father.

4) Matthew 7:7 Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you.
For each one who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, it shall be opened.
Or what man is there of you, if his son asks a loaf, will he give him a stone?
Or if he asks a fish, will he give him a snake?
If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him?

5) Hebrews 4:9 So then there remains a rest to the people of God.

Hebrews 4:10 For he who has entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works, as God did from His.
Therefore let us labour (be diligent) to enter into that rest, lest anyone fall after the same example of unbelief.

6) Matthew 5:48 Therefore be complete, even as your Father in Heaven is complete.

7) Luke 6:40 The disciple is not above his master, but everyone who is complete shall be like his master.

8) John 17:23 I in them, and You in Me, that they may be made complete in one; and that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me.

9) 1Thessalonians 5:14. Now we exhort you, brothers, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, be patient toward all. See that none gives evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue the good, both towards one another and towards all.

Rejoice evermore
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
Do not quench the Spirit.
Do not despise prophesying.
Prove all things, hold fast to the good.
Abstain from every appearance of evil.

And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blamelessly at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

10) Ephesians 5:17. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
And do not be drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit,
speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
always giving thanks for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of God.

11) 2Corinthians 5:21 For He has made Him who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

12) John 14:15 If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, so that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see Him nor know Him. But you know Him, for He dwells with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.
Yet a little while and the world does not see Me any more. But you see Me.
Because I live, you shall live also. At that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.