Friday, March 11, 2005

We Can Know God

"And be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death." Philippians 3:10

Why is it that people believe and have no problem with accepting that we can be filled with satan, or demon possessed and act with outright evil, yet to believe that we can be filled with God and act in His true righteousness is unthinkable? It just never made any sense to me. But look here, Paul didn’t struggle with being filled with our Father and he was encouraging the Philippians to be the same way. We should not want our own righteousness; we should desire God’s righteousness. Think about it, God’s righteousness, the glory of it, the freedom of it, the love of it, and the power of it. Living completely in our Father's righteousness should be our desire and hope.

How does our Father tell us that we can have His righteousness? He tells that we are able to have it by faith! "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; Who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:2 Jesus will Author and Finish the faith within us so that we can have the very righteousness of God! Jesus prayed in John 17 that we would have His glory. Well what is Jesus’ glory? It is righteousness and Jesus' righteousness allowed Him to bare all of our sins and not be condemned to death and Hell.

Look also at what Paul writes, that He may know God. We should want to know our Father, who is He, what is He, how is He, why is He, all He is. The glorious Truth is that we can actually know our Father, Who just happens to be God! We can know the power of His resurrection, just as Jesus knows it! So what is the power of Jesus’ resurrection? “Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.” Romans 6:9-11 The power of Jesus’ resurrection is that He died unto sin once, that He may forever more live unto God! We can know that power in our own lives! “And now, O Father, glorify Thou Me with Thine Own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” John 17:5 Jesus was raised from the dead to be just as He was before He was manifested on earth as a man and God teaches us that with His righteousness, we can have the exact same thing.

Now when can we have Jesus' righteousness? Romans 6:11, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Now, is when we can have our Savior's righteousness. We can know our Father now and knowing our Father means eternal life. “And this is eternal life, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.” John 17:3 We can know God, we are now His children, His friends, His servants, and His body. We can know Him, not just know of Him, but actually know Him. That is an awesome thing and something the world needs to hear. Our Father knows us, so why shouldn’t we know Him. If the only thing my kids ever had was letters about me, they would never know me. The Bible is great, I love it, yet, I don’t want to just read about our Father, I want to know Him. I want to hang out with Him, talk to Him, hear Him, and be taught by Him, I want to be as He is! He wants the same things for us! He has provided a way and the way is by us looking unto Jesus to Author and Finish the faith within us that brings the very righteousness of God into us. If we are one with God, we are one with His righteousness. That’s just good and simple Truth!

Our righteousness is as filthy rags, yeh, so what? We don’t look unto our own righteousness for anything; we look unto our Lord's righteousness. We stand before Him on His merits, not our own. Our best doesn’t even equal His worst. Don’t freak out about that, it is only symbolism! Glory, righteousness, sanctification, holiness, and perfection, these are all God’s qualities and He isn’t stingy with them, He allowed us to become one with them. We are born from them, they are who we are. We may not know exactly how to walk in them yet, but our Father will teach us and cause us to walk as He walks! We can’t help but exhibit these qualities; we are flesh of His flesh, bone of His bones. We are born again of all these things, it’s just who we are!

Be blessed this day. Jesus loves you and He has given you everything that pertains unto life and unto godliness!

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