We could look at the righteousness of God, in the sense of righteousness being an attribute of God, God’s righteous character is part of God’s glory. BUT NOW the righteousness of God, apart from the law is manifested; God has provided for people what people desperately lacks, God’s very own perfect righteousness.
Christendom today are praying in the hope of making their will, God’s will. Some are even claiming the power to direct God’s will today, by way of demand. Some would say if they request with enough faith, not doubting, God will grant their request. Pray was not given for the purpose of gaining God’s attention. God’s attention was there all the time.
When we pray, how many of us can be totally content to rest solely in the fact that God knows what is best for us, and then trust him in doing that very thing, even in difficult circumstances, even when we rather things turn out differently, even in the complete absence of what we often call material or physical blessing.
God actually desires that we take our cares and concerns to him. It is the avenue that God has given us believers that we might express our trust in him, but he DID NOT give us prayer as an avenue by which we can direct his hand or shape his will.
God gave us prayer as an avenue for the expression of our trusting him no matter the circumstance, no matter the outcome of that circumstance. God gave us prayer for the purpose of our peace, he knew how disparate a human mind would need peace. Through prayer a believer is able to release to God their fears, desires, inter-most anxieties while at the same time acknowledging to God that they trust God no matter the outcome of those situations.
You have got your good times, and your joyous times, but you have your sad times, and your bad times. You have got times when you are very low emotionally, when you seem like you are on the bottom and you do not know where to turn or what is happening next; the whole creation is suffering while we are under the curse.
The reality is, no believer is immune from the suffering circumstances that come our way. All believers suffer, we just suffer in different ways and to different degrees and at different times in our lives, but we continue to suffer. You see, it is not health, wealth, and prosperity in THIS life, as the popular money-mongering ministers of righteousness would have us believe today, it is just the opposite.
God’s purpose was to allow us to suffer, so that we can put our hope on display to those who know nothing about our hope. Romans 8:21 - So, being freed up fem all these suffering circumstances is not just liberty, it is a glorious liberty!
You see, it is not God causing bad things to happen to bad people and good things to happen to good people. God is not raining down suffering circumstances to BRING bad people in line, and he is not raining down similar adverse circumstances on good people that have gone bad to KEEP those people in line.
If we could pray these circumstances away, what hope would we need? Our hope would reside right here in praying them away. The deliverance would come now, instead of later when Christ returns in the air to catch us up to be with him, our suffering situations will forever be a thing of the past.
Was it your body or was it Christ’s body that freed humankind from the law’s jurisdiction? It was Christ’s body. The law will never work to accomplish our sanctification. How many do you suppose there are today who are working under the false assumption that they must curry God’s favor through personal behavior, if they are going to merit God’s blessings?
The human race is dead to law keeping for righteousness, they are dead to a law keeping for righteousness relationship and that relationship is gone forever, Christ took it out of the way. When Israel’s New Covenant comes into play, they will be caused to know Christ, they will all know him to the least to the greatest.
Paul was striving to know Christ and know him intimately, not as Israel’s messiah, but to know him in the power of his resurrection and in the fellowship of his suffering, Paul wanted Christ’s life to be manifest in his own life.
God’s blessing and God’s favor are there for in no way based upon how well any person conforms to a standard today; that is being married to two partners. Paul desired to be found in Christ, not with a righteous record that could be gauged as having come from Paul as the source, but with righteousness that had God at it’s source, a gift declaration of rightness before God.
No longer are we striving under a performance based merit system for righteousness before God that will never work, we can never be married to Christ that way. There are believers out there who know Christ in his resurrection power, because they are acquainted to one degree or another with the fellowship of his sufferings, one does not come apart from the other.
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