The Righteousness of God part two.

In my previous blog I wrote fairly extensively about the righteousness of God in Christ that has now been given to us and has come to us.
I wrote about the need to identify ourselves with this righteousness from God in order to separate ourselves from "our old sin tags",and from the old identity of the sinful man that dominated us before we came to Christ and were saved.
In this latest blog I would like to write about the consequences of having this new righteousness which we have received,and of the fruits which it will produce in a believers life who cultivates a rich consciousness that they are "The righteousness of God in Christ."
In the book of Isaiah chp 32 v17 we read that
"The work of righteousness will be peace,
And the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.
My people will dwell in peaceful habitations,
In secure dwellings,and in quiet resting places."
So the first fruits of this righteousness being restored to us is a quality of peace and quietness and assurance.
I use the word restore because from the fall of Adam man has been on a perpetual quest to have his sense of lost righteousness restored.(Is this not the mainspring of all of the worlds religions,man seeking to establish his own righteousness through a variety of means,but not submitting to the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus?)
Thank God that because of Jesus this righteousness has now been restored,and restored in such a way that the worst offender and the commiter of the most heinous crime,can after receiving Jesus and being born again walk into the presence of the most holy God without a sense of sin or shame or condemnation.
That is the divinely given right of every child of God, so that if as a christian you are struggling with thoughts of self hatred towards yourself, or guilt or shame for the past it is because you have not yet established your heart in the revelation of your righteousness.
The scripture quoted above states that
"The work of righteousness is peace "
The number one fruit of this new found righteousness is the peace of God,and the more we meditate on our having been made the righteousness of God in Christ the more we shall partake of this quality of peace.
Of course our enemy the devil knows that to steal the peace of God from a Christians life he must get them to remain in ignorance or unbelief regarding their righteousness.
And generally he has been successful in doing so, because very few Christians have their consciences trained and their minds settled on the unchallengeable unalterable fact that they are the righteousness of God in Christ.
This is also why in the sixth chapter of Ephesians when Paul talks about putting on the whole armour of God, he speaks of the breastplate as being "the breastplate of righteousness"
(The breastplate was the part of the protective armour that covered the vital organs, ie the heart and kidneys.)
It is when we are settled and convinced of our righteous standing before God that likewise our hearts are covered and our minds protected from the fiery darts of the wicked one.
What are those fiery darts?
Primarily they are in the form of accusations towards us in the form of regrets for the past, shame and condemnation for the present, or fear regarding the future.
Being established in a sense of our righteousness is what protects us from the accusations of the evil one.
In Isaiah chp 54 and v 14 we read
"In righteousness you shall be established;
you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;
And from terror for it shall not come near you."
Later in that same passage we read that
"No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue that shall rise against you in judgement
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is of me,"says the Lord.

Notice how in this scripture the accusations against us are silenced and have no basis because "their righteousness is of me"
Every tongue that rises against us in judgement will be silenced.
Whether it be other Christians who are unguarded and unwise in their criticisms of me, or the accuser of the brethren who accuses us before Gods throne day and night, all of those voices of accusation are silenced in Gods sight, because they have no valid base because my righteousness is of Him.
The Lord does not use the devil to correct his children that is the Holy Spirits role and he is always the Spirit of Grace.
God is jealous to protect his own children.
Even in our own experience as parents we may need to correct our own children but we will protect them from the accusations of others against them;and this is appropriately so.
We may well discern those areas which need our guiding hand and even our rebukes, but it is not the right of another person to correct our children for us.
Many Christians are susceptible to the accusations of the devil or easily shaken by the criticisms of other because they have failed to distinguish between Gods way of correcting them and the enemies way of condemning them.
God convicts us but always with hope rising in our hearts and always with Love.
When we become established in a consciousness of our right standing with God we are not easily shaken by the voices of others judgement towards us, neither are we easily condemned because we know that it does not alter our right standing with God one iota and that we can in all good conscience stand in the presence of our God and say" thank God my righteousness is of him"
Satan's name is "the accuser" and as I said his accusations can take many different and subtle forms.
But basically they always result in some form of pressure against us that makes us feel under a judgement and a failure.
The antidote to this is to become convinced that "my righteousness is of Him"
We must as the scripture says become established in righteousness in order to accurately discern between Gods voice and the accuser of the brethren.
Let us never doubt that our righteousness is an established fact from Gods standpoint, now it must become an established truth in our own hearts and in our minds.
How do we become established in a righteousness consciousness?
We do so simply by meditating upon the word of God in this area of truth continuously.
Deuteronomy 30 v14 says "The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it"
This is a passage of scripture that is quoted by the apostle Paul,in the new testament to illustrate the principle of the righteousness of faith.
Notice it has to be in your mouth in order for it to be in your heart.
There seems to me to be something very often within the Psyche of the British character that is reluctant to speak out and confess boldly Gods word.
And yet there is such a power to it.
If we want to establish our hearts or as psalm 112 says fix our hearts on any truth of Gods word, to a place where we are not moved,then we have to continuously say those scriptures again and again and again.
They have to become deeply built into our spirit and into our consciousness, until they become instinctive and "second nature "to us.
In other words we think that way and act that way without having to think about it.
In my own experience I used to greatly struggle with this whole area of finding it hard to grasp a strong sense of my righteousness, and yet I had a tenacity to pursue this with a passion because I new that it would be life to me if I grasped this.
I began by reading a little book by ew Kenyon entitled "two kinds of righteousness" which began to answer the cry of my heart.
I also listened to the preaching of men like Kenneth Copeland on messages concerning becoming established in a righteousness consciousness which gave me a sense of hope for where I wanted to go.
Ultimately however it was in my writing down every scripture that I could find in both old and new testaments concerning the righteousness of God, and in confessing them out loud often in the first person;a process which I did over a period of several years.
Day after day week after week and month by month,I would say aloud "I am the righteousness of God in Christ",and then proceed to build around that confession numerous other scriptural promises concerning the righteousness of God quoting them not in the abstract but as my own possession.
The effects of this discipline have been life changing and I thank God for the power of the word of God to set us free.
Another consequence of become convinced of our righteousness before God and established in it is that we become bolder towards the enemy of our souls.
We are no longer intimidated by evil.
The bible says that for the child of God no weapon that is formed against us will prosper, and that when we are established in righteousness we shall be far from oppression for we shall not fear.
Fear in our lives in whatever area is what opens the door to oppression
The fact that I am righteous is proof positive that God has raised Jesus from the dead
(Rom 4 25 says who was delivered up for our offences and raised when we were declared righteous)
And because he is raised I have been raised up with him and his triumph over all sin and wickedness and evil belongs to me as a child of God.
Therefore I no longer need fear when I walk into the presence of evil because I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and the enemy fears me as he feared the righteousness of Jesus.
Remember how in the presence of Jesus the demons cried out "what have we to do with you Jesus of Nazareth have you come to torment us before the time"
The presence of Gods righteousness is a torment to the enemy and when ever we confront evil we do so as those who have been made the very righteousness of God.
He is far more afraid of us and tormented by us than any christian should ever be of him.
Proverbs says "the wicked flee when none pursue them but the righteous are as bold as a lion"
Boldness and confidence comes as we mediate upon who we are in Christ.
It is then that we will be willing to go where Christ wants us to go, and to say what he wants us to say.
It is then that we shall not shrink back from any intimidation or opposition whether of men or of demons, but resting in the presence of our Father in heaven we will continuously hear his whisper to our hearts,even in the hardest places saying to us,
"Your righteousness is of me"