Thanks for sharing. It means a lot to me to know that someone else understands this process of God.
Righteousness and Holiness
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Me too.
And a lot has remained very difficult, but this is what keeps me close to Him.
Much love!
"…13You will tread on the lion and cobra; you will trample the young lion and serpent. 14“Because he loves Me, I will deliver him; because he knows My name, I will protect him. 15When he calls out to Me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him.…" - Psalm 91:13-15
No. (Gospel of Christ) Jesus Christ is the Righteousness (Romans 1:16-17) - we as willing participants allow ourselves be molded ( Romans 8:29) and pruned by our Father who prunes (John 15:1-2) us back from time to time, as our (Romans 5:3-5) character is building while having faith in the Death, Burial, and Resurrection ( 1 Corinthians 15:1-3) of Christ. No one can say they do good things; it will always be from the Father (James 1:17) who gives good gifts: which by the (Romans 5:5) Holy Spirit, spirit of Christ (Galatians 2:20)in you works on your own heart first as you believe (Romans 10:9-11)with your heart and not on just bread (Matthew 4:4) but what God has spoken through the Holy Spirit. It’s called ( 1 Thessalonians 2:13)sanctification, however even ( 2 Corinthians 12:8-9) Paul was not fully sanctified in his flesh he had a thorn in his side.
“Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you.”
2 Peter 1:5-11 NASB1995
Hope that helps you brother, it’s nothing we do we do participate however it’s all credit to God himself and never ourselves.
With love in Christ,
Matthew G.
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yes we do which is all part of our growth which comes from a relationship by abiding in Christ being Holy is not always a feeling. but a inward then outward lifestyle . we bear fruit
its justification ( declared righteous)--> just as if we had never sinned ( forgiven or sin debt wiped free ) the moment we are Born again we become a new creation in Christ old things passed away all things become new . then we are set apart sanctified which is holiness which equal growing in the grace and knowledge of HIM. not a condition but a relationship its like being put on a potters wheel we have to be molded by the masters loving hand. we start out as clay the potter starts forming us into a vessel of honor, he then places it a heating kiln to be cured . i see this as the refiners fire/ the fiery trials .Job said
Job 23:10 But He knows the way that I take;
When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.
after the kiln the paint goes on aka the finished product. we made it home and the finished part of becoming a vessel of honor is over
Glad you’re okay and glad to know you don’t come in that often on the weekend. It will keep me from worrying next time that something happened to you!
I don’t know if a ton of people will be interested in our discussion, but I sure will be!
If it helps you to break down righteousness into 3 separate kinds of righteousness, I guess I say…go for it. I guess I even do a little of that in my own mind because if I force myself to think about it, I guess I would say your “imputed” righteousness would be this to me: God justifies sinners when they admit the truth. Of the two sinners who went to pray, It was the one who admitted the truth about himself that walked away justified.
I can’t really follow or connect to your last two though. Even when I force myself to try I can’t do it. I just come up blank.
I do know the scriptures are good for training in righteousness. And my own experience has been that they have trained me to be able to see right from wrong. But even though my senses have been trained to see right from wrong, it doesn’t make me able to always DO the right. My nature is still there and I am still capable of coming up with a bunch of reasons why I should do the wrong, and even convincing myself I am not doing wrong when I am doing wrong. It can take quite some time before I see I did wrong, gave excuses for why. It’s like when the man came and told David a story and David railed against the man in the story and then was told, YOU are the man in the story. David could clearly see the man in the story was doing wrong, but what he couldn’t see is that HE was the man in the story.
At some point, for me, that morphed into tossing out all excuses and treating myself very roughly. I realized that although God justifies sinners who are truthful, I am very capable of being untruthful and not realizing I’m being untruthful. My heart is that evil. So the two men who went to pray, sometimes I am one and sometimes I am the other one.
That led me to terrible agonies. I worked very hard to be good. But all my trying just seemed to make me worse.
Believe it or not, it took me many years before I gave up one day and said, wait…I just need to return to trusting God for the child He has promised…and I told God I could now clearly see I would remain the way I was unless He did something, unless He made me good.
Soon after, all the bitterness and angers and offendedness and spitefulness and murdering others in my heart and resentfulness seemed to melt away. I can be very forthright and open with others now but without those things. They just aren’t there anymore. It doesn’t stop others from reacting to me with those things and it doesn’t stop others from assuming I am being mean and spiteful, but I can walk without them and stay in love. I trusted God. That’s the only thing I did. I got brutally honest about my heart, stopped trying to fix my own heart, and just went back to trust.
I do not think we grow in holiness. I think we grow in righteousness.
Ronald David Bruno
Well-Known Member
There are those with weak faith, but it is still faith.
I think your brother believes the gospel and Jesus' promise that he will be saved and go to heaven when he dies. That's faith. To some, it stops there. Faith that things will work out in this corrupt world is where his doubts lie. Life usually doesn't work out the way you planned it so if one bases their future on past negative experiences, and not that "God causes all things to work for good to those who love the Lord, to those who are called to His purpose", then they will inevitably doubt.
Embracing the apparent loses, failures, mishaps as good for you is not easy at the time. I don't know your bro, but this is my guess.
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Ferris Bueller
Well-Known Member
From a legal standpoint we are entirely and utterly righteous in God's sight, having received the righteousness of God through our faith in God's promise apart from the merit of our works. It doesn't increase, nor does it decrease. It's always perfect and complete in God's sight.
Then there's the matter of our practical righteousness....how we act. That is the holiness/righteousness that we are growing up into. Righteous, holy living is the special purpose we have been set apart to walk in. We were 'made holy', that way, the moment we believed. But we are also 'being made holy' as we learn to actually walk in the righteous life we have been set apart to live.
I was not made holy the moment I believed. To me, the thought is ludicrous. Not saying you are ludicrous. Saying the thought that I am holy is ludicrous to me. God is holy. I am not.
edit: in response to ferris’ post.
edit: in response to ferris’ post.
Nancy
Well-Known Member
Hi Ronald,
"Faith that things will work out in this corrupt world is where his doubts lie." <---- You hit the nail on the head there. He will come back with an answer according to "Frank", every time like: Well do you trust your doctor, since you do have a few of them' or 'You have to trust someone who on this earth' 'why would they purposely try to hurt us?'...on and on. So, yes you got pretty close to what my brother Frank is all about. He is not easy to be n the phone with and, he is very paranoid about "Covid"...Thanks for your reply Ronald. I will continue to pray for my brother as, I know he puts more faith in this government than God, even though he gives lip service by saying "I do have faith, BUT...you have to trust SOMEBODY! I always say yes, of course we do and that would be Christ! He will have something to say back every time.
God bless brother!
Ferris Bueller
Well-Known Member
You were sanctified the moment you believed. That means you were made holy (set apart for a noble purpose) the moment you believed.
It's like when mom takes a special dish and says this will no longer be used on taco night. It is now to only be used on special occasions like Thanksgiving and Christmas. And so it has been set apart as 'holy' in that moment. That's what God declared about us the moment we were born again. We were set apart as holy, and to only be used for a holy purpose. And then there's the small matter of actually doing that, lol.
The key here, SBG, is to understand the concept of 'sanctification' and the setting apart of things for a holy purpose. You'll gain valuable insight into this by reading how things were set apart as holy (sanctified) for service in the temple in the OT.
Ferris Bueller
Well-Known Member
That is the practical aspect of holiness.
But you were declared holy (set apart for a holy purpose) the moment you believed.
You'll spend the rest of your life perfecting that holy purpose God has set you apart to.
im not buying that. When they encounter God and say holy,holy,holy, they say it of God, not of anyone else. And I don’t think when they say holy,holy,holy they are saying: God is set apart for a noble purpose.
Sorry, I just am not holy. There’s only one who is holy. I would be scared to run around claiming I’m holy.
Holy means being set apart from the worlds standards; we are now in the standard of which God sees us as right with him.
The scriptures are not lying they are true just read if for one self slowly out loud.
For in the Gospel of Christ is found to be the power of God to salvation. For in it righteousness is founded.
You don’t have to think, you can know for a fact friend.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.””
Romans 1:16-17 NASB1995
The scriptures are not lying they are true just read if for one self slowly out loud.
For in the Gospel of Christ is found to be the power of God to salvation. For in it righteousness is founded.
You don’t have to think, you can know for a fact friend.
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.””
Romans 1:16-17 NASB1995
If you make a choice to live by the holy spiritual are you not allow Gods holiness in and through you to come forward is another question one should ask themselves. Are you not allowing the spirit of Christ to come through making that choice?
