ICS Daily Devotions
Righteousness Comes from Him
Psalm 34:15-17(NKJV) The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles.
Nobody will be able to carry out great exploits and adventures with God if they think God is unhappy with them or against them. Only those who know that God is with them will do great exploits for Him. It says in Romans 8:31 that if God is for us, who can be against us? This passage talks about all the tribulations, persecutions, and challenges that we can face in life, but God’s everlasting love is with us, and He is on our side!
When we are faced with a crisis, one of the devil’s attacks on our lives is our right standing with God, because he is known as the accuser of the brethren who accuses us day and night, tormenting us with our past sins. Because all of us have a past, he will use condemnation to make us feel unworthy to cry out to God in prayer. He will make us believe that we are unworthy of God’s love, mercy, and grace because of the weaknesses in our lives. He knows how to make us feel little, full of shame, and condemned, but God has asked us to put on the breastplate of righteousness to resist the devil when he comes against us or accuses us of being unworthy.
Many people will fall into the trap of being discouraged or doubtful about God’s willingness to listen to their cries or even pay attention to them. They will doubt their right standing with God and be uncertain whether they are righteous because of the imperfections in their lives. Moreover, many people base their worthiness before God on their own works and personal conduct. While both works and personal conduct are important, we would never obtain a right standing with God based on our own abilities.
There is a difference between living a righteous life and being seen as righteous in the eyes of God. Righteousness is the ability to stand before God just like you have never sinned—a positional truth. Nobody can claim self-attained righteousness because we are all imperfect creatures waiting for the perfection in heaven. However, Jesus has obtained our righteousness on our behalf when He took all our sins upon Himself on the cross and gave us His righteousness.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV) For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Sermon Series: Great Adventures and Great Exploits
