6/17/11

21 Days to Discover who you are in Jesus Day 2: I am Righteous

21 Days to Discover who
you are in Jesus
Day 2
I Am Righteous

I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord my God!
For he has dressed me with the clothing of salvation
and draped me in a robe of righteousness.
I am like a bridegroom in his wedding suit
or a bride with her jewels.
Isaiah 61:10 nlt

When you put your faith in Jesus and accepted His invitation to belong to His royal family, He dressed you in a robe of righteousness. He changed your identity from a sinner into a righteous princess in the kingdom of God. He proved His love by laying His life down for you. When He looks at you, He sees you as justified, innocent, and perfect; and His opinion of you will never change. You have been declared righteous by the blood of Jesus.

But God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ…died for us. Therefore, we are now justified (acquitted, made righteous, and brought into right relationship with God) by Christ’s blood…                                   Romans 5:8,9 Amplifed 

What does it mean to be “declared righteous by His blood”? Righteous means to be obedient to all God’s commands;to be justified, good, innocent, and perfect in God’s sight.
In Deuteronomy 6:25 nlt, God reveals how a person could be declared righteous through the law: “For we will be counted as righteous when we obey all the commands the Lord our God has given us.”
Only one man met these conditions of righteousness. His name is Jesus. The Father declared Him righteous because He obeyed every law of God perfectly. He had on a beautiful robe of righteousness. He was justified, good, innocent, and perfect in the Father’s sight.
Yet, all of us were sinners. We’ve all disobeyed God’s commands. No matter how hard we try to be good, we’ve all failed. The Bible says our righteousness is like filthy rags. We were dressed in dirty, sin-stained clothes. Yet Jesus loves us so much that He was willing to take the punishment for our sins. When we put our trust in Him, all our sins were wiped away with His blood. He took off our filthy, sin-stained clothes and dressed us with His righteousness. It was His love gift to us. No matter how hard we tried to be righteous by obeying God’s commands, we could never be good enough in our own ability. So, Jesus did it for us.
None of us deserve to be called righteous, that’s why it’s called a “gift of grace.” It’s the greatest Christmas gift ever. When Jesus offered it to us and we opened it, inside was a beautiful robe of righteousness. He looked at us with love in His eyes and said, ”Let Me dress you with who I am.” Now the Father sees us as righteous, good, innocent, and justified because we are in Jesus. Hebrews 10:14 says that Jesus made us perfect forever. The Bible also says:
Christ did no wrong thing. But for our sake God put the blame for our wrong ways on Christ. So now God sees us as good, because we are in Christ.
                    2 Corinthians 5:21 Worldwide English
Your heavenly Father wants you to exchange trying for trusting. I used to try so hard to be good. I wanted to be like Jesus, but because I failed at times, I believed that I wasn’t good enough. The devil planted these lies in my mind:
You’re not like Jesus.”
“You need to try harder to be good.”
“You’ll never be good enough.”
When I learned that I am righteous in Jesus, my heart was set free from believing the lies of the enemy. I didn’t have to try anymore in my own strength to be good enough. I was already righteous in Christ. When I began to believe who I am in Jesus, He empowered me to act more and more like Him.
You don’t have to try anymore in your own strength to be good enough. You can believe the truth that your heavenly Father sees you as good because you are in Christ. Jesus clothed you with His righteousness. It was His wedding gift to you. Now you can agree with what Jesus says about you and realize you are just like Him.
So believe who you truly are. Speak the truth out loud:
·        Jesus clothed me with His righteousness. I am just like Him.
·       I am good in my Father’s eyes because of Jesus.
·       Jesus made me perfect forever.

Prayer
Thank you, Jesus, for your love gift to me. I see myself clothed in the robe of righteousness that you purchased for me. You paid a great price so I don’t have to look at myself as a sinner anymore. Help me to remember who I am in You. You made me good and perfect in my Father’s eyes. I am just like You. Your love for me is amazing!




4 comments:

  1. I love our RIGHTEOUSNESS!!!!

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  2. The more I dwell on this immeasurable, generous gift Jesus gave to us, the more it makes me wonder how on earth I could have possible believed that all of my trying would earn approval from God.

    After reading this post, I just saw how being robed in His righteousness is such a love gift as mentioned in reference to a wedding. Jesus expressed His joy in giving this robe to us, and in response it just makes me love HIm all the more.

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  3. When I think about How Jesus robed me in His perfect righteousness, I am in awe of His great love for me and it makes me love Him sooo much!

    Yes, I am righteous because of Jesus!

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  4. I am always amazed at the freshness of this word. I have read this book soo many times, and yet it is always new.
    I am continually renewing my minds eye to the truth of my identity. I am who Jesus says I am.
    What peace and reflief, freedom from all my much striving…..

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