Righteousness Biblical Quotes

Some rabbis say that, at birth, we are each tied to God with a string, and that every time we sin, the string breaks. To those who repent of their sins, especially in the days of Rosh Hashanah, God sends the angel Gabriel to make knots in the string, so that the humble and contrite are once again tied to God. Because each one of us fails, because we all lose our way on the path to righteousness from time to time, our strings are full of knots. But, the rabbis like to say, a string with many knots is shorter than one without knots. So the person with many sins but a humble heart is closer to God.

The key is to pump up your righteous anger and mute your petty resentment. I'll be happy if I can get that balance to fifty-fifty.

A person who is seeking to feel justification for some action might move from “What you’ve done angers me” to “What you’ve done is wrong.” Popular justifications include the moral high ground of righteous indignation and the more simple equation known by its biblical name: an eye for an eye.

Ponder this quote by John MacArthur until it is written in the corridors of your mind: “We need to adjust our presentation of the gospel. We cannot dismiss the fact that God hates sin and punishes sinners with eternal torment. How can we begin a gospel presentation by telling people on their way to hell that God has a wonderful plan for their lives?” It is true that God has a wonderful plan for their lives—but it is that they would repent and trust the Savior, and receive the righteousness of Christ.

True biblical love is compassionately and righteously pursuing the well-being of another.

FEBRUARY 17 I WILL CAUSE YOU TO DWELL IN SAFETY I HAVE SENT My angels to surround you and to cause you to dwell in safety. They will deliver you from all danger and will surround you with My protection. I will hold you up, and you will be safe. My eyes are turned on My righteous servants, and My ears are attentive to your cry. I will deliver you from all your troubles. The name of My Son is a fortified tower for you, and you can run to it where you will be safe. Do not be afraid, for I will guide you safely wherever you go. You can lie down and sleep, for I have made you to dwell in safety. I am Your God, and I will keep you safe and will protect you forever from the wicked who freely strut around in wickedness. PSALMS 34:7–22; 78:52; 12:5 Prayer Declaration You will answer me, Lord, when I call to You, and will give me relief from my distress. You will have mercy on me and hear my prayer. You will grant peace in my family, in my land, and no one will cause me to be afraid. You will walk with me and will be My God, and I will be Your faithful servant.

We can demand respect because of our rank, or we can foster respect because of our righteousness.

God’s justice is higher than merely punishing someone who has committed an injustice—He desires to restore everything that was lost.

We can’t earn our way into God’s favor by meticulously following a moral code — even a biblical one. Our deeds will never be righteous enough. God’s standard of holiness is way beyond our best efforts.

It is the moral anesthetic of our day to ask God and our friends to only understand our sin from our point of view. This mind-set of seeing sin from a personal point of view has led to, at best, weak Christians crippled by sin and untouched by gospel power, or at worst, wolves in sheep’s clothing who hunker down with offices in the church, teaching feeble sheep a perverted catechism, one that renders sin grace and grace sin, one that confuses doubt with intelligence and skepticism with renewed hope. When we live by the belief that sin is best discerned from our own point of view, we cannot help but to develop a theology of excuse-righteousness. We become anesthetized to the reality of our own sin. One consequence of this moral anesthesia is the belief that you are in good standing with God if you give to him what the desires of your flesh can spare. But sin, biblically rendered, is both a crime and a disease, requiring both the law of God and his grace to apply it for true help.

True worship of God springs from our inability to answer two simple questions posed by a biblical understanding of the fear of the Lord: (1) O God, who is like you in power, righteousness, mighty deeds, and in pardoning sin (Ps. 71:18-19; Mic. 7:18-20)? and (2) what are woman and man that God should look down from heaven and care for them and lift them up to sit with princes (Ps. 8:4; 113:5-8)?

Here, then, is how we can get sinners to cry out, according to Paris Reidhead: If I had my way, I would declare a moratorium on public preaching of “the plan of salvation” in America for one to two years. Then I would call on everyone who has use of the airwaves and the pulpits to preach the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, and the Law of God, until sinners would cry out, “What must we do to be saved?” Then I would take them off in a corner and whisper the gospel to them. Don’t use John 3:16. Such drastic action is needed because we have gospel-hardened a generation of sinners by telling them how to be saved before they have any understanding why they need to be saved.

Western views of justice are primarily focused on how things should be done—laws, rules, and what should happen when laws are broken. In Hebrew thought, justice is focused on what life should be like. Justice in the Hebrew world was concerned not just with laws, but with enhancing all human life, especially the social world.

Doing justice” meant not only “not doing wrong,” but also actively doing right and restoring what is broken.

God’s justice is satisfied when there is restoration.

Instead of using His righteousness as an excuse to distance Himself from people, God’s righteousness means that He comes so close that He can save His people.

intentional. Unless justice is founded upon a transcendent, objective basis of righteousness, it necessarily will be founded on man-made morality, imposed by whoever holds power.

After a long and happy life, I find myself at the pearly gates (a sight of great joy; the word for “pearl” in Greek is, by the way, margarita). Standing there is St. Peter. This truly is heaven, for finally my academic questions will receive answers. I immediately begin the questions that have been plaguing me for half a century: “Can you speak Greek? Where did you go when you wandered off in the middle of Acts? How was the incident between you and Paul in Antioch resolved? What happened to your wife?” Peter looks at me with some bemusement and states, “Look, lady, I’ve got a whole line of saved people to process. Pick up your harp and slippers here, and get the wings and halo at the next table. We’ll talk after dinner.” As I float off, I hear, behind me, a man trying to gain Peter’s attention. He has located a “red letter Bible,” which is a text in which the words of Jesus are printed in red letters. This is heaven, and all sorts of sacred art and Scriptures, from the Bhagavad Gita to the Qur’an, are easily available (missing, however, was the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version). The fellow has his Bible open to John 14, and he is frenetically pointing at v. 6: “Jesus says here, in red letters, that he is the way. I’ve seen this woman on television (actually, she’s thinner in person). She’s not Christian; she’s not baptized - she shouldn’t be here!” “Oy,” says Peter, “another one - wait here.” He returns a few minutes later with a man about five foot three with dark hair and eyes. I notice immediately that he has holes in his wrists, for when the empire executes an individual, the circumstances of that death cannot be forgotten. “What is it, my son?” he asks. The man, obviously nonplussed, sputters, “I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t you say that no one comes to the Father except through you?” “Well,” responds Jesus, “John does have me saying this.” (Waiting in line, a few other biblical scholars who overhear this conversation sigh at Jesus’s phrasing; a number of them remain convinced that Jesus said no such thing. They’ll have to make the inquiry on their own time.) “But if you flip back to the Gospel of Matthew, which does come first in the canon, you’ll notice in chapter 25, at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, that I am not interested in those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but in those who do their best to live a righteous life: feeding the hungry, visiting people in prison . . . ” Becoming almost apoplectic, the man interrupts, “But, but, that’s works righteousness. You’re saying she’s earned her way into heaven?” “No,” replies Jesus, “I am not saying that at all. I am saying that I am the way, not you, not your church, not your reading of John’s Gospel, and not the claim of any individual Christian or any particular congregation. I am making the determination, and it is by my grace that anyone gets in, including you. Do you want to argue?” The last thing I recall seeing, before picking up my heavenly accessories, is Jesus handing the poor man a Kleenex to help get the log out of his eye.

Peacemaking, then, cannot be separated from truth telling. The church’s witness does not involve simply denouncing the excesses of both sides and making moral equivalencies. It involves calling injustice by its name. If the church is going to be on the side of peace in the United States, then there has to be an honest accounting of what this country has done and continues to do to Black and Brown people. Moderation or the middle ground is not always the loci of righteousness.

Biblical love is a choice to do good for another person regardless of what we feel. It is a decision to compassionately and righteously pursue the betterment of another person. This is why you can even love your enemies according to Christ’s command.

The moon established which day was the first of the month, and which was the fifteenth. Such festivals as Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles were set on particular days of the month (Leviticus 23:5-6, 34; Numbers 28:11-14; 2 Chronicles 8:13; Psalm 81:3). The moon, of course, governs the night (Psalm 136:9; Jeremiah 31:35), and in a sense the entire Old Covenant took place at night. With the rising of the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2), the "day" of the Lord is at hand (Malachi 4:1), and in a sense the New Covenant takes place in the daytime. As Genesis 1 says over and over, first evening and then morning. In the New Covenant we are no longer under lunar regulation for festival times (Colossians 2:16-17). In that regard, Christ is our light.

God’s glory is not always immediate, but it is certain. He will be glorified for His holiness, for His defeat of Satan, for His righteous judgment, and for His grace to redeemed sinners (Revelation 5). This glory must have a backdrop of sin to be fully realized.

During the day as serious opinions are being discussed, there is an opportunity to give the biblical view on issues of sin and righteousness or the purpose of life. But each time you speak, you have seen rejection of yourself with your views. Each testimony of truth makes you more unwelcome. Will you be bold for truth today?

The important point here is that the idea of “heaven” as the eternal hope of the righteous has no structural place in the story. It is simply irrelevant and extraneous to the plot. Heaven was never part of God’s purposes for humanity in the beginning of the story and has no intrinsic role as the final destiny of human salvation.

As a biblical foundation, the scriptures state that the fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful (Jas 5:16), that everyone in heaven is righteous (Rev 21:27), that people in heaven pray for those on earth (Rev 5:8), that the mother of Jesus could be seen in heaven (Rev 12:1–5), and that her offspring were “those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus” (Rev 12:17). Furthermore, if Saint Paul could claim to be a spiritual father and declare that he was in labor pains for others until Christ be formed in them, how much more would this be true of Mary! None suffered with Christ more intimately than Mary, who was, in the words of John Paul, “crucified spiritually with her crucified son.

Zoroaster was the prophet of the Persians, the people who restored the Jews to Jerusalem, the same Persians who later gave rise to the Chaldeans. The basic idea in Zoroaster’s teaching is that there are two Gods, one good, the other evil. The good God is a God of Light, of Justice, of Wisdom, who created a perfectly good world. His name is Ahura Mazda, “First Father of the Righteous Order, who gave to the sun and stars their paths.” The Mazda bulbs were named after this God of Light. Against him stands a God of Evil, Angra Mainyu, “the Deceiver,” who is the god of lies, darkness, hypocrisy, violence, and malice. He it was who threw evil into this good and well-made world. Thus the world in which we live is a mixture of light and darkness, of good and evil. This worldview is the mythology of the Fall. In its biblical transformation, it is the Fall. There is then a nature world that is not good and one does not put oneself in accord with it. It is evil and one pulls out or away in order to correct it. From this view arises a mythology with this sequence: Creation, a Fall, followed by Zoroaster (or Zarathustra), who teaches the way of virtue that will bring a gradual restoration of goodness. On the last day, after a terrific battle known as Armageddon, or the Reckoning of Spirits, Zoroaster will appear, in a second incarnation, the evil power will be wiped out, and all will be peace, light, and virtue forever. This mythology is surely familiar to all.

For this reason, Christ had to live a life of perfect obedience to God in order to earn righteousness for us. He had to obey the law for his whole life on our behalf so that the positive merits of his perfect obedience would be counted for us. Sometimes this is called Christ’s “active obedience,” while his suffering and dying for our sins is called his “passive obedience.”3

God’s personal, passionate concern for justice and righteousness was the starting place for His people to build them into every part of their culture. The place we should all live from is “justice and righteousness.” Everything we do, from the way we raise our families to the way we run our businesses to our own relationships with the vulnerable, should reflect “justice and righteousness.

The welfare of you, your community, and the world are central to living righteousness. The Creator of the universe knows what we need to do to stay healthy, balanced, and free within the design of His creation. This is His how-to guide for living our healthiest, most relationally rich and happy life. Staying inside His boundary lines is ultimately for our own benefit. When we go outside them, we are hurting ourselves and others.

MARCH 16 I WILL COVER YOU IN THE GARMENT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS YOU ARE MY beloved child. I have clothed you with garments of salvation and arrayed you in a robe of righteousness. My Holy Spirit has clothed you with power from on high, and you are clothed with My Son, Christ. I have given you My beauty for your ashes, the oil of My joy for your mourning, and My garment of praise for your spirit of heaviness. My righteousness is a breastplate of protection for you, and I have shod your feet with the gospel of My peace. I have made you My ambassador, so that you may speak boldly to explain the mysteries of My gospel. ISAIAH 61:10; EZEKIEL 16:8–13; GALATIANS 3:27; EPHESIANS 6:14 Prayer Declaration I am clothed with the garment of salvation. My God has placed the robe of His righteousness over me and given me the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He has prepared me for battle by preparing me with armor of defense. His righteousness is my strong and impenetrable breastplate, and His justice protects me like armor.

The word “righteous” used to grate on my ear; for years I was able to hear it only in its negative mode, as self-righteous, as judgmental. Gradually, as I became more acquainted with the word in its biblical context, I found that it does not mean self-righteous at all, but righteous in the sight of God. And this righteousness is consistently defined by the prophets, and in the psalms and gospels, as a willingness to care for the most vulnerable people in a culture, characterized in ancient Israel as orphans, widows, resident aliens, and the poor.

As a believer in Jesus Christ—and as the son of an evangelical minister, raised in a conservative church in a conservative community—I had long struggled with how to answer this question. It would have been easy to say something like: “Well, John, most evangelicals are craven hypocrites who adhere only to selective biblical teachings, wield their faith as a weapon of cultural warfare, and only pretend to care about righteousness when it suits their political interests. So, it’s no surprise they would ally themselves with the likes of Donald Trump!

Only in the biblical revelation is the tension between law and love resolved, with vast social and historical implications, in the person and work of Jesus Christ. By His perfect righteousness and His vicarious atonement, the strictest requirements of law and justice were fully met and fulfilled, and the statutes of God observed to every jot and tittle, and yet, at one and the same time, the love of God unto salvation was manifested in and through Him. The cross thus is the symbol of the unity of law and love in Jesus Christ and of the full requirement and mutual integrity of both.

The center of the Christian message and the essential core of all biblical counseling is that Jesus, who existed eternally as God, came down from heaven and became a man, lived a life of unceasing and perfect love for God and neighbor, died in the place of sinners (and never sinned Himself) to bear the penalty of righteous wrath for their sins, rose to life to conquer death and give life to those who believe, presently intercedes for His followers, and anticipates a future return when He makes all things new and establishes a never-ending kingdom. (The Bible calls this message “the gospel.

APRIL 19 MY TRUTH WILL REMOVE EVERY FALSE MINISTRY IN HIGH PLACES MY CHILD, BE aware that in these days there are false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who saved them, and will cause many to reject My teachings and My way of truth. Their judgment has been idle for a long time, and because they have grown cold to the truth, they will bring on themselves—and others—My swift destruction. Do not listen to their lies, and reject their teachings. They must be removed from their lofty seats of comfort, and the results of their disobedience will become an example to any who might be swayed to follow their ways. Rise up like my servant Josiah, and stand for Me in truth, leading all who know you to turn from evil and to do what is right in My eyes, not turning aside to the right or to the left. 2 PETER 2:1–3; 2 KINGS 22:1–2 Prayer Declaration Lord, remove every false ministry and strange god from the high places. Let righteous men with Your wisdom sit in the high governmental places of my city and nation. Let the spiritual foundations that were built in my city, community, and nation be restored. Use me to walk in the spirit of Josiah and lead the people into righteousness.

The word translated “favor” in Genesis 6:8 is the Hebrew hen, which also means “grace.” With that in mind, there are two ways that this pivotal moment of the biblical narrative could be taken. The first is that Noah, because he was righteous and blameless in his own strength, attracted God’s attention and found divine favor. The second is that Noah was given grace on God’s free initiative, not because of any good behavior or spark of potential on Noah’s part, and that as a result of receiving grace he is righteous and blameless. Both the fuller context of a biblical understanding of God’s undeserved grace and the order of the propositions in verses 8 and 9 militate in favor of the latter interpretation.

Humanization and liberation understandings have taken seriously the plight of the poor, oppressed, and marginalized. Approaches to mission that declare simplistic spiritual answers for all humanity’s problems without also addressing the sociopolitical roots of those problems are neither credible nor in the spirit of the gospel. God’s concern for the plight of the poor and disenfranchised is well attested in the Old Testament, in the life of Jesus, and in the early church. “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern” (Prov. 29:7). The question is not whether the church should be concerned about the poor and the economic systems that contribute to poverty and oppression; rather, the question is how such issues should be addressed and how such concerns relate to the overall task of missions.

MARCH 14 I WILL CLEANSE YOUR LIFE FROM SECRET FAULTS MY CHILD, BE aware of the danger of trying to hide your faults or actions from Me, for I see the hidden secrets in your heart. Nothing can be hidden from the light of My presence. You were once darkness, but now you are light in Me. Live as children of light (for My light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth) and find out what pleases Me. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. Everything exposed by My light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. Be very careful how you live—not as unwise by as wise—making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. PSALM 19:12–13; JEREMIAH 23:24; EPHESIANS 5:8–16 Prayer Declaration Lord, cleanse my life from secret faults. I renounce secret and shameful ways. I will not use deception, nor will I distort the Word of God. The only thing that I will hide in my heart is the Word of God, so that I might not sin against You.

Some time ago, the concept of the “carnal Christian” became popular among some evangelical groups. The basic idea was that someone could be saved, and yet living no differently than an unbeliever day after day. In their lives there would be no hunger and thirst for righteousness, no patterns of obedience, little or no prayer or Bible reading, spotty church attendance, coupled with a love for the world, and a worldly mindset hostile to the Christian faith. Yet, because these people had “prayed the sinner’s prayer” or gone forward at a Billy Graham rally, or “asked Jesus into their hearts” at a youth camp, they were supposedly Christians. This shallow idea of conversion was coupled with the biblical concept of “once saved, always saved,” and a poisonous concoction resulted. Once that concoction was downed, the person became seriously ill with spiritual self-deception. The end of that road is hell. If anything gives you complacent comfort in a sinful lifestyle, it is a devilish component of the problem.

Luther is credited with being among the first to clearly recognize the biblical teaching that justified Christians are both sinners and saints. He used the Latin expression, “simul iustus et peccator.” This is an essential part of the doctrine of justification because it relates to imputation. In imputation, Christ’s righteousness is credited to our accounts with God. In God’s sight, we become what we are not. We are sinners, but through Christ, we are accounted righteous. But even after justification, we still sin and we are still sinners. Not as far as our status with God goes, but as we live out our daily experience on this earth. This is important to note because later on in church history, the doctrine of justification comes under attack in Protestantism and it is revised heavily in an unbiblical direction. As a result, simul iustus et peccator also comes under attack. However, Luther saw that this was a crucial part of the biblical doctrine of justification. By God’s grace he recovered it for us.

APRIL 17 BIND THE POWERS OF DARKNESS THAT CONTROL THE AIRWAVES MY CHILD, IT is My desire that you will do what is right in My sight and that you will walk in the ways of righteousness. Seek My face, and like My servant Josiah, purge your life and your home of the powers of darkness that arise as altars of wickedness in this present generation. Break down the wickedness of the media, which has corrupted the eyes of this present generation. Take authority over the powers of the enemy that are permeating the airwaves and releasing filth and violence upon this land. Seek My righteousness, and fill the eyes and the ears of this generation with the wonders and miracles of My great love and power. 2 CHRONICLES 34; EPHESIANS 2:2, LEVITICUS 26:30 Prayer Declaration Lord, I take authority over the princes of media in the name of Jesus. Let the high places of witchcraft be destroyed, and let the eyes and ears of this present generation be turned to Your righteousness. Make me a beacon of light in this evil world, and raise up a standard of righteousness in this land.

APRIL 12 I HAVE GIVEN YOU POWER TO RELEASE YOURSELF FROM THE CURSE OF LUST AND PERVERSION MY CHILD, I have given you the gift of My Holy Spirit, who is powerful and strong and who will save you from the curse of lust and perversion that has affected the generations with whom you dwell. Trust My Holy Spirit to give you the power to release yourself from the spirits of lust and perversion. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Let perverse lips be far from you, and let your eyes look straight ahead. Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left, and keep your foot removed from evil. PHILIPPIANS 2:15; PROVERBS 4:23–27 Prayer Declaration Holy Spirit, fill me with the power to set myself free from all lust and perversion. I will no longer live under the curse of a perverse heart, and I commit to You today to keep my lips free from perversion and my eyes looking straight at You. Let all my ways be established in righteousness, and continue giving me the strength to remove my feet from all evil.

APRIL 21 MY HOLY SPIRIT WILL REPAIR THE BROKEN GATES OF YOUR LIFE RAISE YOUR PRAISES to Me, for I have strengthened the bars of your gates and made peace in your borders. Through My Spirit I have made the crooked places straight and broken the enemy’s bars of iron from your life. I have opened the double doors of your gates so they will not be shut against Me. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am your God. I will establish the gates of praise in your life and open the gates of righteousness that you may enter in. PSALM 147:13; ISAIAH 45:1–4; PSALM 118:19 Prayer Declaration Holy Spirit, establish the gates of praise in my life. Repair the broken gates of my life, and open them before me that I may go in and receive the treasure of the hidden riches of Your secret places. Let all the gates of my life and city be repaired through You, and break the gates of brass and iron that the enemy has used to try to hold me captive. Open the double doors of Your righteousness in my life so that the gates will not be shut.

JUNE 17 I WILL BREAK THE CURSE OF POVERTY DO NOT WORRY about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet I feed them. You are more valuable to Me than they, and I know all that you need and desire. Seek My kingdom first, and My righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. I have broken the curse of poverty from your life. Blessings and prosperity will be yours, for prosperity is the reward of the righteous. Behold, I have plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. MATTHEW 6:25–33; PSALM 128:2; JEREMIAH 29:11 Prayer Declaration I break all curses of poverty, lack, debt, and failure in the name of Jesus. I seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all things are added unto me. I break all assignments of the enemy against my finances in the name of Jesus. The blessing of the Lord upon my life makes me rich. Wealth and riches are in my house because I fear God and delight greatly in following His Word. I am God’s servant, and He takes pleasure in my prosperity.

You might think your life is a mess right now, but God doesn’t. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified (Romans 8:28–30). The world wants one thing for you; God wants another. z The world offers you finer wine; God wants you to act like His Son. z The world offers you a bigger house; God wants you to think like His Son. z The world offers you a fancier wardrobe; God wants you to be clothed in the righteousness of His Son. The world offers things that are relatively easy to obtain. God offers you profound things that require more effort than online shopping. The world wants you to conform to its image. God wants you to be transformed to think and act the way human beings were created to act: like image bearers of Almighty God. To accomplish this, He is causing all things to work together for your good.

APRIL 2 SATAN IS A LIAR AND THE FATHER OF LIES DON’T ALLOW THE enemy to strategize against you. Overcome and destroy his strategies through prayer. The main tactic of the enemy is deception. He is a liar and the father of lies. My Word will expose his tactics to you. I am light, and My Word is light. The light exposes the enemy and tears away the darkness. Beware of the hosts of lying and deceiving spirits that work under the authority of Satan. These spirits cause delusion, deception, lying, seducing, blinding, error, and guile. Call upon My name, and I will strip away the power from these deceiving spirits and will cause your eyes to be opened. Pray that your enemies will be scattered, confused, exposed, and destroyed. JOHN 8:44–47; 1 TIMOTHY 4:1; PSALM 68:1 Prayer Declaration The Lord has rescued me from all my enemies and from the lying and deceiving spirits that belong to the devil. My enemies are destroyed by my God. The Lord will lead me on level ground and will preserve my life. In His righteousness He has brought me out of trouble. With His unfailing love He has silenced my enemies and destroyed all my foes. In His power I will contend with the powers of darkness that are set against the kingdom of God.

Others, however, have an overwhelming sense of their own inadequacy and see only their failings, and to these Edwards brings the sweetness of the Christian experience of God's comfort. He reminds us that when we come to the gospel, there is repentance and reliance upon Christ. The biblical repentance to which Edwards draws us is marked out by its all-encompassing nature. We repent not only of our sins but also of our righteousness, as we see the utter unacceptability of even our best deeds. By resting in Christ, by which we see ourselves as completely accepted by him, his record becomes ours, and our record is imputed to him. His blessings and the reward of his sacrifice become ours, and our sin is imputed to him. The consequence of this is an intense humility in our lives, and with it a blessing of comfort and sense of pardon. Paradoxically, we discover that the more sinful we see ourselves, the more radical appears the nature of the grace of God, and the sweeter the fruit of repentance becomes in our lives. Genuine repentance is brought about, ultimately, neither by the fear of consequences nor by the fear of rejection, but as a ministry of the Holy Spirit, who gives to us a deep conviction of the mercy of God.

APRIL 30 EXECUTE JUDGMENT AGAINST MY OPPRESSORS MY CHILD, HEAR my words, for I am the Lord your God. I will execute judgment in the morning and deliver those who have been plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. I will punish them according to the fruit of their doings and will judge them according to My righteousness. I will hold you up in mercy, and in the multitude of the anxieties within you, My comfort will delight your soul. I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away. I will bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick. I will make a covenant of peace with you and cause showers of blessing to come down in your season. You will know that I am the Lord who has broken the bands of your yoke and delivered you from the hand of those who oppressed you. JEREMIAH 21:12; EZEKIEL 34:16, 25–27 Prayer Declaration Father, because I am Your sheep, You will deliver me from all the places where my oppressors have scattered me. You will feed me in good pasture and shelter me on the high mountains of Your grace. I will no longer be a prey for the wicked but will dwell safely, and no one will make me afraid. For You are my Lord, and You have broken the yoke of oppression and delivered me from my oppressors.

Question: What is it, to walk with God? Answer: Walking with God imports five things: 1. Walking as under God's eye. Noah reverenced God. A godly man sets himself as in God's presence, knowing that his judge is looking on: "I have set the Lord always before me" (Psalm 16:8). David's eyes were here. 2. The familiarity and intimacy which the soul has with God. Friends walk together and console themselves with one another. The godly make known their requests to God and he makes known his love to them. There is a sweet fellowship between God and his people: "Our fellowship (koinonia) is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:3). 3. Walking above the earth. A godly man is elevated above all sublunary objects. The person who walks with God must ascend very high. A dwarf cannot walk among the stars, nor can a dwarfish, earthly soul walk with God. 4. Visible piety. Walking is a visible posture. Grace must be conspicuous to the onlookers. He who reveals something of God in his behavior, walks with God. He shines forth in biblical conduct. 5. Continued progress in grace. It is not only a step but a walk. There is a going on towards maturity. A godly man does not sit down in the middle of the way but goes on until he comes to the "end of his faith" (1 Pet. 1:9). Though a good man may be out of the path, he is not out of the way. He may through infirmity step aside (as Peter did)—but he recovers by repentance and goes on in progressive holiness: "The righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger" (Job 17:9).

What are some of the concerns regarding the penal substitutionary metaphors? Some of this debate is theological and exegetical, often centering upon Paul and the proper understanding of his doctrine of justification. Specifically, some suggest that the penal substitutionary metaphors, read too literally, create a problematic view of God: that God is inherently a God of retributive justice who can only be “satisfied” with blood sacrifice. A more missional worry is that the metaphors behind penal substitutionary atonement reduce salvation to a binary status: Justified versus Condemned and Pure versus Impure. The concern is that when salvation reduces to avoiding the judgment of God (Jesus accepting our “death sentence”) and accepting Christ’s righteousness as our own (being “washed” and made “holy” for the presence of God), we can ignore the biblical teachings that suggest that salvation is communal, cosmic in scope, and is an ongoing developmental process. These understandings of atonement - that salvation is an active communal engagement that participates in God’s cosmic mission to restore all things - are vital to efforts aimed at motivating spiritual formation and missional living. As many have noted, by ignoring the communal, cosmic, and developmental facets of salvation penal substitutionary atonement becomes individualistic and pietistic. The central concern of penal substitutionary atonement is standing “washed” and “justified” before God. No doubt there is an individual aspect to salvation - every metaphor has a bit of the truth —but restricting our view to the legal and purity metaphors blinds us to the fact that atonement has developmental, social, political, and ecological implications.

...he [Perry Hildebrandt] broached the subject of goodness and its relation to intelligence. He'd come to the reception for selfless reasons, but he now saw that he might get not only a free buzz but free advise from, as it were, two professionals. 'I suppose what I'm asking,' he said, 'is whether goodness can ever truly be its own reward, or whether, consciously or not, it always serves some personal instrumentality.' Reverend Walsh [Trinity Lutheran] and the rabbi [Meyer] exchanged glances in which Perry detected pleasant surprise. It gratified him to upset their expectations of a fifteen-year-old. 'Adam may have a different answer,' the rabbi said, but in the Jewish faith there is really only one measure of righteousness: Do you celebrate God and obey His commandments?' 'That would suggest,' Perry said, 'that goodness and God are essentially synonymous.' 'That's the idea,' the rabbi said. 'In biblical times, when God manifested Himself more directly. He could seem like quite the hard-ass--striking people blind for trivial offenses, telling Abraham to kill his son. But the essence of the Jewish faith is that God does what He does, and we obey Him.' 'So, in other words, it doesn't matter what a righteous person's private thoughts are, so long as he obeys the letter of God's commandments?' 'And worships Him, yes. Of course, at the level of folk wisdom, a man can be righteous without being a -mensch.- I'm sure you see this, too, Adam--the pious man who makes everyone around him miserable. That might be what Perry is asking about.' 'My question,' Perry said, 'is whether we can ever escape our selfishness. Even if you bring in God, and make him the measure of goodness, the person who worships and obeys Him still wants something for himself. He enjoys the feeling of being righteous, or he wants eternal life, or what have you. If you're smart enough to think about it, there's always some selfish angle.' The rabbi smiled. 'There may be no way around it, when you put it like that. But we "bring in God," as you say--for the believer, of course, it's God who brought -us- in--to establish a moral order in which your question becomes irrelevant. When obedience is the defining principle, we don't need to police every little private thought we might have.' 'I think there's more to Perry's question, though,' Reverend Walsh said. 'I think he is pointing to sinfulness, which is our fundamental condition. In Christian faith, only one man has ever exemplified perfect goodness, and he was the Son of God. The rest of us can only hope for glimmers of what it's like to be truly good. When we perform an act of charity, or forgive an enemy, we feel the goodness of Christ in our hearts. We all have an innate capability to recognize true goodness, but we're also full of sin, and those two parts of us are constantly at war.' 'Exactly,' Perry said. 'How do I know if I'm really being good or if I'm just pursuing a sinful advantage?' 'The answer, I would say, is by listening to your heart. Only your heart can tell you what your true motive is--whether it partakes of Christ. I think my position is similar to Rabbi Meyer's. The reason we need faith--in our case, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ--is that it gives us a rock-solid basis for evaluating our actions. Only through faith in the perfection of our Savior, only by comparing our actions to his example, only by experiencing his living presence in our hearts, can we hope to be forgiven for the more selfish thoughts we might have. Only faith in Christ redeems us. Without him, we're lost in a sea of second-guessing our motives.

The Sumerian pantheon was headed by an "Olympian Circle" of twelve, for each of these supreme gods had to have a celestial counterpart, one of the twelve members of the Solar System. Indeed, the names of the gods and their planets were one and the same (except when a variety of epithets were used to describe the planet or the god's attributes). Heading the pantheon was the ruler of Nibiru, ANU whose name was synonymous with "Heaven," for he resided on Nibiru. His spouse, also a member of the Twelve, was called ANTU. Included in this group were the two principal sons of ANU: E.A ("Whose House Is Water"), Anu's Firstborn but not by Antu; and EN.LIL ("Lord of the Command") who was the Heir Apparent because his mother was Antu, a half sister of Anu. Ea was also called in Sumerian texts EN.KI ("Lord Earth"), for he had led the first mission of the Anunnaki from Nibiru to Earth and established on Earth their first colonies in the E.DIN ("Home of the Righteous Ones")—the biblical Eden. His mission was to obtain gold, for which Earth was a unique source. Not for ornamentation or because of vanity, but as away to save the atmosphere of Nibiru by suspending gold dust in that planet's stratosphere. As recorded in the Sumerian texts (and related by us in The 12th Planet and subsequent books of The Earth Chronicles), Enlil was sent to Earth to take over the command when the initial extraction methods used by Enki proved unsatisfactory. This laid the groundwork for an ongoing feud between the two half brothers and their descendants, a feud that led to Wars of the Gods; it ended with a peace treaty worked out by their sister Ninti (thereafter renamed Ninharsag). The inhabited Earth was divided between the warring clans. The three sons of Enlil—Ninurta, Sin, Adad—together with Sin's twin children, Shamash (the Sun) and Ishtar (Venus), were given the lands of Shem and Japhet, the lands of the Semites and Indo-Europeans: Sin (the Moon) lowland Mesopotamia; Ninurta, ("Enlil's Warrior," Mars) the highlands of Elam and Assyria; Adad ("The Thunderer," Mercury) Asia Minor (the land of the Hittites) and Lebanon. Ishtar was granted dominion as the goddess of the Indus Valley civilization; Shamash was given command of the spaceport in the Sinai peninsula. This division, which did not go uncontested, gave Enki and his sons the lands of Ham—the brown/black people—of Africa: the civilization of the Nile Valley and the gold mines of southern and western Africa—a vital and cherished prize. A great scientist and metallurgist, Enki's Egyptian name was Ptah ("The Developer"; a title that translated into Hephaestus by the Greeks and Vulcan by the Romans). He shared the continent with his sons; among them was the firstborn MAR.DUK ("Son of the Bright Mound") whom the Egyptians called Ra, and NIN.GISH.ZI.DA ("Lord of the Tree of Life") whom the Egyptians called Thoth (Hermes to the Greeks)—a god of secret knowledge including astronomy, mathematics, and the building of pyramids. It was the knowledge imparted by this pantheon, the needs of the gods who had come to Earth, and the leadership of Thoth, that directed the African Olmecs and the bearded Near Easterners to the other side of the world. And having arrived in Mesoamerica on the Gulf coast—just as the Spaniards, aided by the same sea currents, did millennia later—they cut across the Mesoamerican isthmus at its narrowest neck and—just like the Spaniards due to the same geography—sailed down from the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica southward, to the lands of Central America and beyond. For that is where the gold was, in Spanish times and before.

The Deepening Though in the wake of 9/11 Americans gathered in houses of worship across the land and it appeared as if there would be a national return to God—it never came. In place of the revival was a spiritual and moral apostasy that was unprecedented in its scope and accelerating pace. There was now increasing talk concerning the end of “Christian America.” Polls noticed a growing departure from biblical ethics and values. The turn was most pronounced among the younger generation, portending a future of even greater moral and spiritual departure. In the fall of ancient Israel the nation decided it could rewrite morality and change what was good and evil, sin and righteousness—so too in America. What had once been recognized as right was now attacked as evil, and what had once been recognized as sin was now celebrated as a virtue. Morals, standards, and values that had undergirded not only the nation’s foundation, but also the foundation of Western civilization and civilization itself, were increasingly overturned, overruled, and discarded. And those who would not go along with the change—who merely continued to uphold that which had once been universally upheld—were now increasingly marginalized, vilified, condemned by the culture and the state, and persecuted. And not only did the blood of unborn children continue to flow, as it did in ancient Israel, but the number of those killed was now well over fifty million, a population of many Israels. The nation’s moral descent had now reached the point where the government was seeking to force those who held to God’s Word to go against that Word, punishing resistance with fines, damages, and condemnation. Any deviation from the new ethics of apostasy was swiftly punished. At the same time, the name of God increasingly became the object of attack, mockery, and blasphemy.

Sadly though, this side of heaven, we can only attempt to have a fore-shadow of the romance to come. Even the best marriages and the men and women who valiantly strive to follow the Bible’s model of marriage fall short. I am sure many of us have failed in obtaining the type of earthly relationship God planned and intended to display His love. Pre-marital sex, extra-marital sex, homosexuality, sex outside of a marriage covenant, and love-less, dysfunctional marriages are just the beginning. Many have been abused, sold, objectified, molested, even raped. All manner of perversion and depravity have marred the beauty God intended. We are broken, injured, hurt, marginalized, left feeling like so much less than what God requires. If you are one broken, please hear this: It should not have been. It was not God’s way or His will that you were treated like anything less than His highly valued, flawless beauty—His beloved. If you are one who lost your way and engaged in things beneath your royal standing, He died, arose and lives to forgive and restore. Yes, we know a good and solid Biblical marriage gives the closest representation of godly intimacy. But let’s get real for a minute. So few of us have ever experienced that for ourselves or grew up in homes where that was our example, we desperately need to trust God for our own healing and restoration in this area before we can ever hope to experience it in our relationships. I am convinced God’s priority for us is to learn about spiritual intimacy with Him. He can restore marriages, liberate from sexual addictions, save spouses, give us a godly man. But I think, for the most part, those things happen after we realize and accept our need for Christ. His priority will always be our spirit intimately one with His, because He puts the spirit above the flesh. We have to lay our souls bare and ask for His touch. God alone can reclaim our perception of intimacy for His holy and righteous glory. He can restore our hearts and minds to righteousness, clean and pure so we might experience holy intimacy through the Spirit until we see Him face to face in glory.

MARCH 31 The cross is evidence that in the hands of the Redeemer, moments of apparent defeat become wonderful moments of grace and victory. At the center of a biblical worldview is this radical recognition—the most horrible thing that ever happened was the most wonderful thing that ever happened. Consider the cross of Jesus Christ. Could it be possible for something to happen that was more terrible than this? Could any injustice be greater? Could any loss be more painful? Could any suffering be worse? The only man who ever lived a life that was perfect in every way possible, who gave his life for the sake of many, and who willingly suffered from birth to death in loyalty to his calling was cruelly and publicly murdered in the most vicious of ways. How could it happen that the Son of Man could die? How could it be that men could capture and torture the Messiah? Was this not the end of everything good, true, and beautiful? If this could happen, is there any hope for the world? Well, the answer is yes. There is hope! The cross was not the end of the story! In God’s righteous and wise plan, this dark and disastrous moment was ordained to be the moment that would fix all the dark and disastrous things that sin had done to the world. This moment of death was at the same time a moment of life. This hopeless moment was the moment when eternal hope was given. This terrible moment of injustice was at the very same time a moment of amazing grace. This moment of extreme suffering guaranteed that suffering would end one day, once and for all. This moment of sadness welcomed us to eternal joy of heart and life. The capture and death of Christ purchased for us life and freedom. The very worst thing that could happen was at the very same time the very best thing that could happen. Only God is able to do such a thing. The same God who planned that the worst thing would be the best thing is your Father. He rules over every moment in your life, and in powerful grace he is able to do for you just what he did in redemptive history. He takes the disasters in your life and makes them tools of redemption. He takes your failure and employs it as a tool of grace. He uses the “death” of the fallen world to motivate you to reach out for life. The hardest things in your life become the sweetest tools of grace in his wise and loving hands. So be careful how you make sense of your life. What looks like a disaster may in fact be grace. What looks like the end may be the beginning. What looks hopeless may be God’s instrument to give you real and lasting hope. Your Father is committed to taking what seems so bad and turning it into something that is very, very good.

May God’s people never eat rabbit or pork (Lev. 11:6–7)? May a man never have sex with his wife during her monthly period (Lev. 18:19) or wear clothes woven of two kinds of materials (Lev. 19:19)? Should Christians never wear tattoos (Lev. 19:28)? Should those who blaspheme God’s name be stoned to death (Lev. 24:10–24)? Ought Christians to hate those who hate God (Ps. 139:21–22)? Ought believers to praise God with tambourines, cymbals, and dancing (Ps. 150:4–5)? Should Christians encourage the suffering and poor to drink beer and wine in order to forget their misery (Prov. 31:6–7)? Should parents punish their children with rods in order to save their souls from death (Prov. 23:13–14)? Does much wisdom really bring much sorrow and more knowledge more grief (Eccles. 1:18)? Will becoming highly righteous and wise destroy us (Eccles. 7:16)? Is everything really meaningless (Eccles. 12:8)? May Christians never swear oaths (Matt. 5:33–37)? Should we never call anyone on earth “father” (Matt. 23:9)? Should Christ’s followers wear sandals when they evangelize but bring no food or money or extra clothes (Mark 6:8–9)? Should Christians be exorcising demons, handling snakes, and drinking deadly poison (Mark 16:15–18)? Are people who divorce their spouses and remarry always committing adultery (Luke 16:18)? Ought Christians to share their material goods in common (Acts 2:44–45)? Ought church leaders to always meet in council to issue definitive decisions on matters in dispute (Acts 15:1–29)? Is homosexuality always a sin unworthy of the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9–10)? Should unmarried men not look for wives (1 Cor. 7:27) and married men live as if they had no wives (1 Cor. 7:29)? Is it wrong for men to cover their heads (1 Cor. 11:4) or a disgrace of nature for men to wear long hair (1 Cor. 11:14)? Should Christians save and collect money to send to believers in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1–4)? Should Christians definitely sing psalms in church (Col. 3:16)? Must Christians always lead quiet lives in which they work with their hands (1 Thess. 4:11)? If a person will not work, should they not be allowed to eat (2 Thess. 3:10)? Ought all Christian slaves always simply submit to their masters (reminder: slavery still exists today) (1 Pet. 2:18–21)? Must Christian women not wear braided hair, gold jewelry, and fine clothes (1 Tim. 2:9; 1 Pet. 3:3)? Ought all Christian men to lift up their hands when they pray (1 Tim. 2:8)? Should churches not provide material help to widows who are younger than sixty years old (1 Tim. 5:9)? Will every believer who lives a godly life in Christ be persecuted (2 Tim. 3:12)? Should the church anoint the sick with oil for their healing (James 5:14–15)? The list of such questions could be extended.

What if I say to the church, “God chose you for salvation and Jesus died for you,” and then some of those people fall away and apostatize and end up in hell? Haven’t I lied to them? No, I haven’t. I have spoken the truth. In Scripture, truth is more than just conformity to the facts. It is trustworthiness and faithfulness.10 I have spoken to these people in a trustworthy manner. I have spoken to them in a faithful manner, a manner that they can bank their whole lives on, because I have spoken to them in accordance with God’s revelation. There is a tough, challenging, and surprising passage in Ezekiel 33:13 and following. The Lord says there: When I say to the righteous, he will surely live, and he so trusts in his righteousness that he commits iniquity, none of his righteous deeds will be remembered; but in that same iniquity of his which he has committed he will die. But when I say to the wicked, “You will surely die,” and he turns from his sin and practices justice and righteousness, if a wicked man restores a pledge, pays back what he has taken by robbery, walks by the statutes of life [NASB margin] without committing iniquity, he will surely live; he shall not die. None of his sins that he has committed will be remembered against him. He has practiced justice and righteousness; he will surely live.11 Yet we want to say to God, “You said to the righteous man, ‘You will surely live’—living you will live, in the Hebrew idiom—but he died. You said to the wicked man, ‘You will surely die’—dying you will die—and he lived. You lied to them, didn’t you? You didn’t tell the truth to them.” But who are we to teach God how to speak the truth? This is how God speaks. He says to people, “You will surely live,” and then they die because they trust in their own righteousness instead of trusting in Him. But God was telling the truth when He said to them, “You will surely live.” He was not lying to them. He was saying something trustworthy. When He says to the wicked man, “You will surely die,” He’s saying something trustworthy to that man and the man takes heed to what God has said. He trusts what God has said. He believes that if he stays on the path on which he is going he will surely die. In faith he trembles at the warning and he will surely live. God speaks this way and we must learn from him how to speak. God speaks to His people and He calls them elect, and therefore we also need to speak to God’s people this way. We must. We have no other choice but to let God teach us how to address his people, even if we don’t have it all worked out in our minds. If we are not comfortable with biblical language, not only hearing it but also saying it, if biblical language sounds strange to us, and if our theology gets in the way of our speaking and receiving the language of Scripture, then what has become of us—we, who are to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord?

Christian [historical] revisionism is integral to the Christian Right's approach to politics and public policy. If one's political righteousness and sense of historical continuity are matters of faith, what appears as fact to everyone else becomes fiction before the compelling evidence of faith. Whatever does not fall neatly into a 'Biblical worldview' becomes problematic, perhaps a delusion sent by Satan.

The fact that we get to collectively hire or fire our leaders at the ballot box does not absolve us of the responsibility to intercede for them. Praying for people you don’t like very much is actually a very healthy and biblical thing to do. It is good for them and good for you. A little bit of your own self-righteousness dissipates when you pray for people you don’t like.

What I’m trying to say is that Jesus is Lord. Today. Right now. For real. Jesus will appear for the final judgment, but he is already ruling and judging the nations in righteousness. We may prefer to opt for one of the dualistic options of either liberal utopianism or conservative dispensationalism, but the truth is we must live in the tension of the now and not yet. Jesus is now reigning over the nations, but we do not yet see the fullness of a world made right.

To Nehemiah, the need was so great that he agonized. He wept and mourned before the Lord. R.A. Torrey observed, “We are too busy to pray, and so we are too busy to have power. We have a great deal of activity but accomplish little. Many services but few results.” When Nehemiah saw the spiritual state of his home, he was moved to fervent prayer. He was motivated to respond spiritually and biblically—and God honored that response. James 5:16 says, “…The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

God doesn’t rescue perfect people. He wants people with problems. People with nothing to fix have nothing to say to God. Those who are poor in spirit, those who are in mourning, those who are meek—those are blessed (Matt. 5:3–5) because they can be filled, can be comforted, can be helped. He never said, “Blessed are those who have their act together.” If nothing is broken, nothing can be fixed. We are drawn to this gospel message because we have problems. And after joining a church, we spend our next forty years trying to hide our problems. Having no problems is a problem. The self-righteous attitude of thinking we have no problems is what birthed Alcoholics Anonymous in the 1940s. People found that in A.A. meetings they could still have struggles; they could still be needy. In fact, they had to confess their shortcomings at every meeting. The church today is making great strides in embracing this biblical attitude. The church should be a place where it’s safe to be unfinished, incomplete, and needy.

Ultimately, the question here is simple: what has God promised to our children? The biblical answer is clear: He has promised them Himself. He has promised to give Himself to them in the covenant to be their God (Gen. 17:7). He has promised them His righteousness (Ps. 103:17). He has promised them His Spirit (Isa. 59:21). He has promised them holiness (1 Cor. 7:14). He promised to make them Christ’s disciples (Mt. 28:18–20). He has promised them forgiveness (Acts 2:38–39). All taken together, it adds up to a promise of salvation (Acts 16:31). Thus,

As evil has attempted to take control, political correctness has become a higher value in the USA than righteousness and truth. Right and wrong are consistently being redefined to cater to certain special interest groups. Companies today will pay a huge price if they go against the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) agenda, including possible crippling legal fees if they choose to stand on biblical standards. As I alluded to earlier, disagreeing with the new norms of our society has now been labeled “hate.” No longer are you allowed to debate the leading moral issues of our day without being called a hater (or being ridiculed on social media)—complete with potential lawsuits under hate-crime legislation. Am I out of touch with reality, or have we not entered into the days when men are calling good evil and evil good?

Your righteousness is everlasting and your law is true (Ps. 119:142). Yet

Finding your purpose in life is not the most important thing you can do. Christians’ first priority is to commit their lives to God’s glory. The purpose He may have for them is a matter of His righteous will. To assume that God’s greatest concern is to reveal our purpose in life is to greatly diminish the person and nature of God as revealed in the Bible. It also greatly inflates our importance in the eternal scheme of things. In many instances, such ideas are merely code for discontented suburbanites. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the great and foremost commandment (Matthew 22:37-38

I have never seen Genesis 15:6 held up in the stands of a sporting event, but for the apostle Paul, this text was pivotal in understanding God’s work of redemption. In Romans 4 Paul unpacks the significance of Abram’s faith in the promise of God for an offspring. However, Paul’s focus is on contrasting righteousness through faith instead of works, and for Paul, this is not divorced from the idea of God’s blessing. In the middle of Romans 4, he comments on and quotes from Psalm 32:1–2: “David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, / and whose sins are covered; / blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin’” (Rom. 4:6–8). As Paul reflects on the faith of Abram in Genesis 15, he sees the profound relationship between Abram’s faith in the promise of God and the sin-covering righteousness accounted to him for that faith. For Paul, Abram’s blessing was not simply to get children; it was to get God! The blessing was not stuff but status—being declared righteous by God (Rom. 4:24). And this was not simply for himself—“The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe” (Rom. 4:11).

As the Psalms show us that prosperity ≠ righteousness, Job reveals that suffering ≠ wickedness.40

It is something similar that always marks out people of real biblical faith. Their horizons are filled with much, much more than their personal circumstances, much more than just ‘how God can fit into my life and bless me’. It is the other way round entirely in fact, for people of faith are taken up with the future that God is unfolding for the whole world, with what it means to be righteous before God, ‘walking blamelessly’ before him, as Luke tells us that these people were (1:6).

First, when you fret about the world and wonder whether God has gone away or whether God is “dead”, turn to the doctrine of Judgement. Recapture the lost biblical theme of judgement. God is indeed here—but here in judgement upon a world which has wandered from his righteousness. Let the prophets and the apostles speak to us again of how nations which neglect God, stifle conscience, and prefer selfishness do bring calamity upon themselves. That is what is happening in our world. God has not disappeared: God is here—in judgement. As the Psalmist vividly puts it, “he gave them their hearts’ desire, and sent leanness withal into their souls”. Turn your fretting into the thought that God is here as Judge—and you will once again be near to God himself. Knowing God’s nearness as judge, we know at once his nearness also in mercy and forgiveness.

In each prediction about violence, we must ask what the context, stimuli, and developments might mean to the person involved, not just what they mean to us. We must ask if the actor will perceive violence as moving him toward some desired outcome or away from it. The conscious or unconscious decision to use violence, or to do most anything, involves many mental and emotional processes, but they usually boil down to how a person perceives four fairly simple issues: justification, alternatives, consequences, and ability. My office abbreviates these elements as JACA, and an evaluation of them helps predict violence. Perceived Justification (J) Does the person feel justified in using violence? Perceived justification can be as simple as being sufficiently provoked (“Hey, you stepped on my foot!”) or as convoluted as looking for an excuse to argue, as with the spouse that starts a disagreement in order to justify an angry response. The process of developing and manufacturing justification can be observed. A person who is seeking to feel justification for some action might move from “What you’ve done angers me” to “What you’ve done is wrong.” Popular justifications include the moral high ground of righteous indignation and the more simple equation known by its biblical name: an eye for an eye. Anger is a very seductive emotion because it is profoundly energizing and exhilarating. Sometimes people feel their anger is justified by past unfairnesses, and with the slightest excuse, they bring forth resentments unrelated to the present situation. You could say such a person has pre-justified hostility, more commonly known as having a chip on his shoulder. The degree of provocation is, of course, in the eye of the provoked. John Monahan notes that “how a person appraises an event may have a great influence on whether he or she ultimately responds to it in a violent manner.” What he calls “perceived intentionality” (e.g., “You didn’t just bump into me, you meant to hit me”) is perhaps the clearest example of a person looking for justification.

Faith is a conscious acknowledgment of our own unrighteousness and ungodliness and on that basis a looking to Christ as our righteousness, a clasping of him as the ring clasps the jewel (so Luther), a receiving of him as an empty vessel receives treasure (so Calvin), and a reverent, resolute reliance on the biblical promise of life through him for all who believe.

You must obey the Lord. Whatever He says, you must do. God gave us the Law to protect us, to teach us how to live righteously before Him. The battle belongs to the Lord. We are to be holy as He is holy!

Theology becomes therapy…. The biblical interest in righteousness is replaced by a search for happiness, holiness by wholeness, truth by feeling, ethics by feeling good about one’s self. The world shrinks to the range of personal circumstances; the community of faith shrinks to a circle of personal friends. The past recedes. The Church recedes. The world recedes. All that remains is the self.25

Keller seems to have become overanxious to please the current culture and sound trendy.50 His book is a good example of what happens when well-meaning evangelicals fail to clearly define justice and righteousness in terms of obedience to the law of God and instead import present cultural fads into their interpretative exercise: they end up with a hybrid abstraction that in the name of being biblical, reads humanistic views of justice onto Christianity.

Theology becomes therapy…. The biblical interest in righteousness is replaced by a search for happiness, holiness by wholeness, truth by feeling, ethics by feeling good about one’s self. The world shrinks to the range of personal circumstances; the community of faith shrinks to a circle of personal friends. The past recedes. The Church recedes. The world recedes. All that remains is the self.

In Scripture “righteousness” is more than conformity to a standard of conduct: it describes a relationship between persons. One who is righteous before God is one whose attitude and actions make a harmonious relationship with God possible. Thus Gen 15:6 means that Abraham’s faith placed him in harmony with God. Although Paul greatly deepens the biblical teaching on the significance of faith, his teaching is firmly rooted in the Old Testament.5

Christianity does not work” is the message sent into the world when we fail to live a righteous life.

Isaiah 46:10, "My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please." On the other hand, man's will is enslaved either to sin or to righteousness: "But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness" (Romans 6:17-18). Man has no free will – it is an assumption without any biblical or rational warrant.

The Quran spells out those five tenets: “It is not righteousness that ye turn your faces to the East and the West; but righteous is he who believes in Allah and the Last Day and the angels and the Scripture and the prophets…” (Surah 2:177) Note that two of these five basic tenets deal with prophecy (The Last Day and the prophets). The reference in this verse from the Quran, to “scripture”, is not to the Bible, incidentally, but to other Islamic writings.

Surah 2:177 of the Quran requires a Muslim to subscribe to the five tenets, the second of which is “belief in the Last Day,” and the fifth of which is “belief in the prophets.” It may surprise the average Christian to learn that Muslims have “prophets,” and that they have their own “prophecies,” all centered on “The Last Day.” The Bible proclaims that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (II Timothy 3:16). That being the case, what is the source of Muslim predictions? What do Muslims believe about The Last Day? One can decide that for oneself, and it won’t be very hard to arrive at a conclusion.

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify [them] and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD.” Malachi 3:3

What did the Messiah need to do in order to be the Lamb of God, in order to make an atonement for the people of Israel? We know that Jesus came to die for our sins, but why did He not simply come down from heaven on Good Friday, go to the cross, arise on Easter, and go back to heaven? It was because Christ’s work on the cross was only half of His mission. In order for Jesus to die for our sins, it was first necessary for Him to fulfill the role that Adam failed to fulfill. He had to fulfill all righteousness.

Do We Need a Eulogy or a Birth Announcement? Like most African-Americans my age and older, I have been touched by the virtue and disturbed by the failures of the African-American church. I have had some of the richest times of celebration and praise in local black churches. And I’ve also experienced some of the most perplexing and discouraging situations in this same institution. It was an African-American preacher who vouched for me when I was facing criminal charges as a rising junior in high school, making all the difference in my future. And it was the membership of a black Baptist congregation that nearly poisoned my love for the church when, as a new Christian, I witnessed the “brawl” of my first church business meeting. The preaching of the church gave me biblical tropes and themes for building a sense of self in the world. But a low level of spiritual living among many African-American Christians tempted me to believe that everything in the Black Church was show-and-tell, a tragic comedy of self-delusion and religious hypocrisy. I left the Black Church of my youth and converted to Islam during college. I became zealous for Islam and a staunch critic of the Black Church. I welcomed much of the criticisms of radicals, Afrocentrists, and groups like the Nation of Islam. I cut my teeth on the writing and speaking of men like Molefi Kete Asante, Na’im Akbar, Wade Noble, and Louis Farrakhan. The institution that helped nurture me I now deem a real enemy to the progress of African-Americans, an opiate and a tool of white supremacy. I had experienced enough of the church’s weakness to reject her altogether. The immature and undiscerning rarely know how to handle the failures of its heroes, to evaluate with nuance and critical appreciation. That was true of me before the Lord saved me. In July 1995, sitting in an African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) church in the Washington, DC, area, a short, square, balding African-American preacher expounded the text of Exodus 32. With passion and insight, he detailed the idolatry of Israel and exposed the idolatry of my heart. As he pressed on, more and more I felt guilty for my sin, estranged from God, and deserving of God’s holy judgment. Then, from the text of Exodus 32, he preached Jesus Christ, the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world and reconciles sinners to God. He proclaimed the cross of Jesus Christ, where my sins had been nailed and the Son of God punished in my place. The preacher announced the resurrection of Christ, proving the Father accepted the Son’s sacrifice. Then the pastor called every sinner to repent and put their trust—not in themselves—but in Jesus Christ alone for righteousness, forgiveness, and eternal life. It was as if he addressed me alone though I sat in a congregation of eight thousand. That morning, under the preaching of the gospel from God’s Word, the Spirit gave me and my wife repentance and faith leading to eternal life. I was a dead man when I walked into that building. But I left a living man, revived by God’s Word and Spirit.

Job’s friends say many things about God that are true in the abstract. They say, “In the end all evil will be judged” and “God is pleased with the righteous” and “God is not unjust or unfair” and “We can’t understand God’s ways—they are beyond our puny minds.” Yes—all true statements. And yet Job calls them “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2), and in the end, God condemns the friends for how they respond to Job. Why? They gave true statements but applied these truths inappropriately. Biblical scholar Don Carson writes about Job’s friends: There is a way of using theology and theological arguments that wounds rather than heals. This is not the fault of theology and theological arguments; it is the fault of the “miserable comforter” who fastens on an inappropriate fragment of truth, or whose timing is off, or whose attitude is condescending, or whose application is insensitive, or whose true theology is couched in such culture-laden clichés that they grate rather than comfort.329

Divine sovereignty entails four biblical truths: (1) God knows all things, (2) He controls all things, (3) He is free from all things, and (4) He is holy and righteous in all things.

Some have objected that if Jesus did not sin, then he was not truly human, for all humans sin. But those making that objection simply fail to realize that human beings are now in an abnormal situation. God did not create us sinful, but holy and righteous. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before they sinned were truly human, and we now, though human, do not match the pattern that God intends for us when our full, sinless humanity is restored.

The death of Christ covers our sin, but the life of Christ provides the merit and the righteousness that we must have in order to enter into heaven. So, Jesus’s life is as important for us as His death. He lived to fulfill all of the law of God.

What does it mean to have faith? (11:1) In the Bible, faith is always tied to an active trust in God and his Word. For the believer, there is no such thing as “blind faith.” Faith is the sensible response to the revealed will of God and the privileges he has promised his people. Biblical faith does not mean that people can believe in any unlikely thing and God, in response, must bring it to pass. In other words, faith that is not directly attached to God’s Word is merely positive thinking. At its core, faith—trusting God—is how people access the salvation God has provided in Christ Jesus. Abraham, the father of all who have saving faith (Ro 4:16), believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness (Jas 2:23). Faith is not righteousness, but it is how we access Jesus’ saving righteousness—something we could never access on our own (Eph 2:8). Faith, God’s gift to his followers (Eph 2:8), is fortified by paying careful attention to the Bible and practicing the spiritual disciplines. Romans 10:17 says, Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ. Throughout the Christian life, faith continues to be how believers receive the privileges and necessities for serving Christ. We trust God to give what he has promised—whether it is gifts and abilities to do the work of Jesus in the world and in our own hearts (Jn 14:12–13) or whether it is carrying us through our spiritual journey and into our eternal home in heaven.

The problem is that this “doctrinal grid,” which refers to an eternal, conscious punishment of the wicked in hell, is itself not a metaphor taken too seriously but part of the fabric of the biblical warnings about judgment. Daniel contrasts “everlasting life” with “everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2), and Paul similarly contrasts “death” with “eternal life” (Rom 6:23). The final state is described as “eternal fire” (Matt 18:8; 25:41; Jude 7), and “eternal judgment” (Heb 6:2). Concerning the destruction of God’s enemies, John says that the “smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever” (Rev 14:11; cf. 19:3). It seems, then, that conditionalists disparage those scriptural passages that speak clearly of a never-ending state for those who reject the worship of the true God and the way of humanness that follows from it.27 Eternal punishment is not injurious to God’s justice and love; rather, it upholds it, as Robert Gundry writes: The NT doesn’t put forward eternal punishment of the wicked as a doctrine to be defended because it casts suspicion on God’s justice and love. To the contrary, the NT puts forward eternal punishment as right, even obviously right. It wouldn’t be right of God not to punish the wicked, so that the doctrine supports rather than subverts his justice and love. It shows that he keeps faith with the righteous, that he loves them enough to vindicate them, that he rules according to moral and religious standards that really count, that moral and religious behavior has consequences, that wickedness gets punished as well as righteousness rewarded, and that the eternality of punishment as well as of reward invests the moral and religious behavior of human beings with ultimate significance. We’re not playing games. In short, the doctrine of eternal punishment defends God’s justice and love and supplies an answer to the problem of moral and religious evil rather than contributing to the problem.28

Solomon next said that the upright depart from evil and that people who keep their way preserve their soul.  But while those words are true, he skipped a critical step.  No one ever solves the eternal destiny question by departing from evil or by keeping his or her way because a person's righteousness can never satisfy God's holiness.  So the correct biblical solution to death and to living right is to come to the Lord by faith and receive His forgiveness for sin.  Then he or she will be able to depart from evil, keep their way, and prepare for the other side of the grave.

Lucifer is such a foe. He kicks you when you’re down.” Achava grimaced at the thought of him. “He uses others to fight for him and then tosses them aside just as easily as one would throw away a piece of paper. Most of the people we have fought in the past, are agents of the dark one. As long as we are in the flesh, temptation will pull at us to sway to the least righteous path. As we discussed before, all of the distractions of this age only succeed in helping the beast to accomplish his mission.” “To gain his army?” Sam asked. “I wish it was that simple, Sam.” Achava’s eyes were moist, and then she shed a tear. “Satan knows he is already defeated. He is just trying now to take as many of God’s children away from Him, as possible. The more the evil one takes, the more he laughs in our Father’s face. God gave us choices and we must be judged by those choices.

The biblical doctrine of election teaches that although all human beings deserve endless torment in hell because of their sins, God has chosen to show mercy toward some of them. God chose them before the creation of the universe and before the fall of man, and he chose them without consideration of any condition in them, whether good or bad. Having chosen some for salvation, God sent Christ to die to make complete payment for their sins, so that God may credit the righteousness merited by Christ to them. On the other hand, those who are not chosen for salvation are appointed for damnation, and they will receive the appropriate punishment for their sins, which is endless torment in hell.

How do we do this with children? First, work through what a biblical response would have been. Second, have the child follow through with it. I cannot stress how vital this is in training. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says that when you are tempted, “God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” When we correct our children for wrong behavior but fail to train them in righteous behavior, we will exasperate them because we are not providing them with a way of escape. This sort of neglect will provoke them to anger. There will never be a situation where this does not apply. As a rule, anytime you correct your child for wrong behavior, have him walk through right behavior.

The first distinctive of the Biblical Gospel over against the message taught by Rome was the role of God. Rather than God simply providing a way of salvation, the Reformers discovered that the Bible taught that God actually saved men. That is, rather than salvation being dependent upon men’s striving to take advantage of the plan made available by God, the real Gospel taught that God was able to save men independent of any action on man’s part. God, the Reformers taught, was absolutely sovereign in the matter of salvation. He had, from time immemorial, chosen, elected, predestined to save certain men and bring them into fellowship with Himself, and, since God will never fail to do that which He purposes, those whom God has chosen will be saved! Rather than a man-centered message that made the operative factor man and man’s will and decisions, the Bible presented a God-centered message in line with the words of the Psalmist, “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him” (Psalm 115:3). Next, the Reformers found that the Biblical teaching about man was very different than the elaborate system worked out by medieval theologians such as Thomas Aquinas. They found that sin had affected all of man, to the point that Paul could say, “There is none righteous, there is none who understands, there is not one who seeks after God” (Romans 3:10-11). This meant that even man’s will was enslaved to evil, incapable of seeking after God or doing right. Outside of the sovereign work of God by the Holy Spirit, man was utterly helpless to even will to be saved, let alone be saved through whatever system of works, ceremonies, penances, etc. that might be presented. “And you, being dead in your transgressions...” (Eph. 2:1) is how the Apostle expressed it. Dead in sin, not just wounded by sin, deprived of some original righteousness by sin, hindered by sin. This was a radical concept in that day, for it clearly meant that all the “aids” or “helps” that could possibly be concocted would be of no avail to someone who is dead! No amount of sacraments could help a dead person—God had to act first to bring spiritual life. This also meant that faith and repentance had to be gifts of God, for they were not within the ability of sinful man.

No one needs to hold a PhD in biblical interpretation in order to understand the Bible correctly. God gave us His Word for all to understand. Men and women of faith have apprehended God’s Word throughout history by prayerfully reading it and seeking to do His will. We must approach the Bible with humility and with an open mind, seeking to leave behind preconceived ideas. The Bible, after all, is “profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16, 17).

Proverbs 20:7 “The righteous who walks in his integrity—blessed are his children after him!

The Keswick, “higher-life” movement ... also contributed to a reduction of interest in biblical theology and deeper scholarship. No Christian in his right mind will desire anything other than true holiness and righteousness in the church of God. But Keswick had isolated one doctrine, holiness, and altered it by the false simplicity contained in the slogan, “Give up, let go and let God.” If you want to be holy and righteous, we are told, the intellect is dangerous and it is thought generally unlikely that a good theologian is likely to be a holy person.... You asked me to diagnose the reasons for the present weakness and I am doing it.... If you teach that sanctification consists of “letting go” and letting the Holy Spirit do all the work, then don’t blame me if you have no scholars!171

Exclusively private faith degenerates into a narrow religion, excessively preoccupied with individual and sexual morality while almost oblivious to the biblical demands for public justice. In the end, private faith becomes a merely cultural religion providing the assurance of righteousness for people just like us.

MARCH 17 YOU WILL UPROOT ANY ROOTS OF WICKEDNESS FROM YOUR LIFE TAKE HEED TO walk in the way of goodness and keep to the paths of righteousness. For My upright and blameless children will dwell in My land. But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it. I have this day given you My authority and power over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant. My ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. But if your roots are holy, so will be your branches. When I grafted you into the true vine, which is My Son, you now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root. But remember this: you do not support the root; My Son, Jesus, is the root who supports you. JEREMIAH 1:10; ROMANS 11:17–19; HEBREWS 12:15 Prayer Declaration I lay the ax to the root of every evil tree in my life. Let every ungodly generational taproot be cut and pulled out of my bloodline in the name of Jesus. Let the roots of wickedness be as rottenness. I speak to every evil tree to be uprooted and cast into the sea. Let every root of bitterness be cut from my life. Let Your holy fire burn up every ungodly root in the name of Jesus.