This last week, my head was in a very negative frame of mind, and I couldn’t seem to shake it. I was mostly having negative thoughts about myself, as well as feeling the need to be perfect in every area of my life (an impossible goal for any of us!), and being hard on myself for NOT being perfect.
All my focus was on my imperfections as well as on things in my life that I wanted to be better. There was a continual fog in my brain which kept me quite miserable for days. UNTIL I began to read and meditate on my righteousness in Christ and His unmerited favour towards me.
After spending a couple of hours reading and thinking about these truths one night, the fog COMPLETELY cleared from my thinking!
I felt :
- happier with myself,
- more at peace and
- no longer had the need to try and be perfect in every way,
- nor did I battle with the constant need to ‘accomplish’ something.
I want to share some of these truths with you because they simply are THAT POWERFUL. I know it can have the same affect on your life if you spend time reading and thinking about them. The change for me was extraordinary.
- You can live your life based on your own self-efforts, or you can live it based on the unmerited favour of God towards you:
- We are made righteous through Jesus’ death on the cross, NOT through our own efforts.
- 2 Cor 5:21 ‘He made Him who knew no sin become sin for us, so that in Him we could become the righteousness of God’
- If we try to EARN God’s favour and love by acting righteous through our own efforts (following the law), then we frustrate the grace (unmerited favour) of God and we waste what Christ’s death on the cross obtained for us : Gal 2:21 ‘I do not frustrate the grace (unmerited favour) of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ died in vain’.
- God’s people have been promised His blessings, as long as they are obedient EXCEPT under the new covenant, JESUS was obedient FOR US so that we could receive God’s blessings unconditionally :
- You don’t have to be perfect in your behaviour to receive God’s blessings in your life
- We are now free from any curse because Jesus became a curse for us (Gal 3:13)
- Our dependence on receiving God’s blessings is based on the perfect behaviour of JESUS, NOT our own (we can never be perfect in our behaviour).
- All of our sins – past ones, and any we commit in future – have already been forgiven and Jesus took the punishment for them in His body on the cross
- God says He will remember our sins no more (Heb 8:12; 10:17)
- Our sins are separated from us as far as the East is from the West
- Jesus bore our punishment so that we don’t have to – God will not punish us for our mistakes and failures!
I hope that these truths encourage you as much as they did me – if you find them hard to believe, then study them further and meditate on them a little longer – until they truly sink in!
You are righteous in God’s sight, you are forgiven, and you qualify for His blessings and His unmerited favour, just as you are!
Be FREE to be yourself this week, knowing that who you are is GOOD ENOUGH.
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