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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Three Steps Toward Righteousness, #5
In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. (Hebrews 12:4—NIV)
While we are striving against sin, when practicing the second form of righteousness, Christ in us does not do all the work for us. It is taught today that He does, but He does not. Keeping the numerous commandments of Christ and His Apostles is a joint venture of the adamic man and the Holy Spirit.
The adamic man cries, "I must decrease but He must increase." Then the adamic man places himself on the cross with Christ. As he is made aware of the areas of his personality that are not obedient to the Scriptures, he goes to God for help. He desires grace and mercy so he can remain free from condemnation and also have the ability to reject his sinful nature and embrace the righteous ways of the Lord.
This is why a person cannot be a victorious Christian if he does not have a faithful personality. If the Seed, the Word of God, does not fall into an honest and good adamic heart, no lasting fruit of righteousness can be brought forth. This is not to say there is not wickedness in every heart. There is. Neither is it to state the true Christian will never stumble. He may stumble. But if he stumbles he gets up and continues onward, faithfully following Christ.
The great need of the hour, at least in America, is for the Christian people to read the Bible, find out what it says, and then pray to God in Jesus' name for the wisdom and strength to keep the Lord's Word. It is only then that we have a chance of passing to the third kind of righteousness—that which comes from within us as the Divine Nature fills our personality.
The Fullness of God
A mark, a goal, has been placed before us. It is to acquire the fullness of God in our personality. When this takes place we will think, speak, and act in a godly manner, a manner acceptable to God our Father.
No progress can be made toward this third form of righteousness until we first have received imputed righteousness and then have lived according to the commandments of Christ and His Apostles. The first two forms of righteousness are steps toward the third form. If the third form is not attained, then the program of Divine righteousness has been aborted. The first two forms have failed in their mission.
The third form of righteousness, the fullness of God in Christ, can be seen in three areas:
Christ is formed in us
The Father and the Son dwell in the new creation
The physical body is raised and clothed with the robe from Heaven
Christ is formed in us
My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, (Galatians 4:19—NIV)
It is clear from the text of Galatians that the people being addressed were both saved and baptized with the Holy Spirit.
But Christ had not been formed in them. Or if He had, He had been diminished in some manner.
To be continued.