What is Righteousness?
1. the quality of being morally right or justifiable.
2. To be in right standing with God.
Truth about righteousness
1. We are all unclean from our mother's womb.
Isaiah 64:6AMP But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.
Psalm 51:5AMP Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.
2. No man can be righteous by himself or personal effort. Morality is not righteousness.
Romans 3:22-24AMP
Namely, the righteousness of God which comes by believing with personal trust and confident reliance on Jesus Christ (the Messiah). [And it is meant] for all who believe. For there is no distinction, Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory which God bestows and receives. [All] are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is [provided] in Christ Jesus,
3. Righteousness is a work of grace, therefore it is a gift.
Romans 3:24 [All] are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is [provided] in Christ Jesus,
Romans 5:18-21 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.
4. We attain righteousness by faith.
Romans 4:5AMP But to one who, not working [by the Law], trusts (believes fully) in Him Who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited to him as righteousness (the standing acceptable to God).
5. The grace of righteousness bestowed the responsibility of faith in us.
I Corinthians 15:10AMP
But by the grace (the unmerited favor and blessing) of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not [found to be] for nothing (fruitless and without effect). In fact, I worked harder than all of them [the apostles], though it was not really I, but the grace (the unmerited favor and blessing) of God which was with me.
Romans 6:11-14AMP
Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore rule as king in your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies, to make you yield to its cravings and be subject to its lusts and evil passions. Do not continue offering or yielding your bodily members [and faculties] to sin as instruments (tools) of wickedness. But offer and yield yourselves to God as though you have been raised from the dead to [perpetual] life, and your bodily members [and faculties] to God, presenting them as implements of righteousness. For sin shall not [any longer] exert dominion over you, since now you are not under Law [as slaves], but under grace [as subjects of God’s favor and mercy].
Titus 2:11
For the grace of God (His unmerited favor and blessing) has come forward (appeared) for the deliverance from sin and the eternal salvation for all mankind. It has trained us to reject and renounce all ungodliness (irreligion) and worldly (passionate) desires, to live discreet (temperate, self-controlled), upright, devout (spiritually whole) lives in this present world,
We have received the gift of righteousness in spite of our sinful nature. As many that will believe and accept Jesus Christ, the object of the grace that brought us into righteousness are made righteous before God. The righteousness status that we received made us an heir of God just as Jesus Christ, with this status we have a responsibility (of faith) to be like Jesus not by chance but by following him (discipleship) and committing to the status.
We will fly this year if we are committed to righteousness. Not allowing the devil to make a mess of us but standing in the grace we have received and demanding from God our right in redemption.
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