Our Righteousness

My thoughts today come from Jeremiah 23:5-6:

"Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness: A King shall reign and prosper, and execute judgement and righteousness in the earth. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely."

"Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS."

It is well accepted that Jesus was and is a righteous person, but what is central to the Christian faith, and what is spoken of here, is that the righteousness of Christ also pertains to us.

This is true on the grounds of two intertwined principles: Jesus' authority, and His personal righteousness:

Jesus' authority, (and specifically, His authority as a man) gives Him the right to represent us before God, before the angels, before Satan, and anyone else who has anything to say about us. Paul refers to Jesus as "the last Adam," and as "the second Man," such that Jesus is the summary of all mankind; He is the end of one creation, and the beginning of another, within the common vessel of man. Jesus has both the right to summarize Adam and to represent Adam on the cross, and to be in Himself "the firstborn among many brethren" unto God by the resurrection.

This is a mysterious feat, but through its accomplishment, we are effectively brought before God as a new and holy creation in Christ.

There is much literature and exploration into how this principle of atonement and inclusion in Christ works - how the actions and person of Christ have effected our state before God and are able to effect us individually. I only want to establish here, though, that the principle does work, and that having the personal righteousness of Christ and the nature of Christ as your own is an experience to be entered into.

Where Adam has a weakening hold on the nature of the Christian, through the vehicle of the flesh, Jesus has an ever-increasing, eternal hold upon us through the work of the indwelling Holy Spirit; and it is the Spirit who does the work of cleansing us from Adam, progressively, through His own wisdom and ability. The Blood of Jesus is the constitution by which the Holy Spirit is able to live within us, to work out our salvation, assure us of our atonement, and to bring us into the reality of every other good hope.

What God has prepared for us in Christ is a relationship. It need not be preceded by or tended to with a great deal of labor as though it was not already able to be entered into - It is immediately viable for us, through what God has done in Christ, and it need only be approached by the practice of humble faith for us to experience the merit of it.

It would hardly be any comfort at all if God promised us many great things through Christ - His righteousness, His indwelling Spirit, His nature, etc., but there were some continual exercise down at the human level that was required to substantiate these things: This is not the case, because we have not been given a doctrine to be proven through our own working, but rather a relationship to be experienced through the merit of His working.

Namely, we relate to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior through the certainty of our atonement, and He relates to us as being our personal righteousness through the same agreement. He is the author of our atonement, this agreement between us - it is entirely His doing, and is our inherited right. We cannot contribute to its further accomplishment, nor make our right to it any more certain. We need only enter into it.

Every Christian experience that can be spoken of is directly, immediately consequence to this relationship of us being unto Jesus, and Jesus being unto us in this way.

There is no merit, no gift, no power, no wisdom that can contribute to what God has done in Christ. What we seek is done in Him and is not meant to be replicated in us in some ritualistic or personal manner; but rather, what is personal to Him, His righteousness, is to pertain to us through the means that He has established - that is, our atonement, which we agree upon through faith.

Jesus is our righteousness, and we need not struggle to find that righteousness in ourselves - we will not. His authority represents us before God, and we need not find that comfort elsewhere - we will not. Jesus is our certain experience, and is the final solution to God's desire for holy, justified, and well-cared-for people.

Needing Prayer

My friend Matthew woke up in the middle of the night once and could not get back to sleep for anything: He was definitely tired, but his mind was restless and he could find no comfort in closing his eyes. After a significant amount of time, and building frustration, Matthew noticed that a glass of water sounded particularly good - so he walked down stairs and got one. As soon as he finished the glass of water, he felt peace come over his mind, he felt the relief of returning sleepiness, and was out like a baby almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. When he woke up in the morning, he was intrigued enough by the incident to tell me the story.

Here's what I find interesting: Matthew's mind was restless simply because he was thirsty. The problem is that he did not know that he was thirsty - he tried other things instead. I also find it interesting that his symptom was restlessness - that his body was in a state bad enough that it was no longer appropriate to sleep. Everything about rest had to stop, he had to be woken up, and the problem had to be addressed. His mind would take no comfort until some water had reached his belly.

I am thinking about this story tonight because I have had a recurring incident that is similar in some regards:

I sometimes find myself in a state of mind that I would describe as both restless and exhausted - I am burned out, I have "had enough," and I need some restful, refreshing time alone with God. If you would ask me, I would say "Yes, I need time alone with God!" but I do not know that I need it. I rather wander around aimlessly complaining about how I feel, and telling others that I have "had enough!" and that I am burned out.

What I have found is that I will usually be in this state for quite awhile - days, sometimes weeks, before I give any serious thought as to why I am so miserable. Much like my friend Matthew that night, I am tired, and I want to just roll over and find comfort - I don't want to be bothered about solving the problem of my problems. So being past having any emotional reserve, I do not think it reasonable that I should have to go offer up prayers, and the very thing that I need is what I find myself resisting.

Of course though, once I eventually get alone with God for a good span of time - thirty minutes or so, I find that peace returns to me in full, I find rest, and I am able to get back to being a generally happy and productive person.

I also usually think to myself "That was a lot easier and more enjoyable than I thought..." and I inwardly vow to myself that next time, I will just go pray at the onset of despair rather than at my last tolerance of it.

This is easier said than done though.

The Five Minute Sparks

I have been getting some pressure from friends lately to start writing more - especially from my wife, Cassie, and from William Shaw ( http://shaw-time.blogspot.com/ ).

The trouble I usually have as a writer is not that I struggle for inspiration, but rather that I tend to think about things too concisely to draw out an engaging discussion; so when my friends and family have said "You should write a book," I say "It would be ten pages!" And when I have been asked to speak or preach at churches, I'm usually about done after five minutes...

So starting a blog seems appropriate for my style. My focus here will be uplifting Christian messages, drawn from my personal reflections and experiences.

They should all be worth about five minutes of your time.