Then he believed in the Lord; and He credited it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 15:6, NASB
Have you ever been hacked, like your credit card or social media account? There are people who spend all of their time trying to take what you have and use it for their own pleasure. The more money they have, the more they want, and the more they worry about losing it to someone else. It’s a vicious cycle that eats away at their peace.
Spiritually speaking, the enemy is always trying to take anything he can from us using every kind of deception possible, but we have access to a God-given account that can never be hacked. Sometimes the enemy makes us think we’ve lost something, but it is all deception. We have the power to block his attacks and take back what is rightfully ours. We can have a peace that passes understanding because we have a God whose gifts to us are hack proof.
Perfect
“As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one”
Romans 3:10
Our culture is one that encourages independence and hard work. While those two characteristics are not bad in themselves, they will not make us righteous in the eyes of God no matter how hard we work. The only one who is perfect, who is righteous, is God alone.
When we realize we will never be perfect, we fall prey to comparing ourselves to other people. I may not be perfect, but I am better than Jane or Tom. This is a lie straight from the enemy. In God’s eyes we are all the same: no one is righteous. So, comparison will get us nowhere.
Pardoned
“And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith”
Philippians 3:9
So, how do we get access to righteousness? We receive it as a gift from God when we accept Christ as Lord and believe by faith. As adopted children of God, it becomes part of our inheritance. Sin no longer has a hold on us.
Christ died for our sins, and when we accepted salvation, he wiped our debt and our sins clean. We weren’t just paroled; we were pardoned as if it never happened. Then we became co-heirs with Christ, which means we have access to the righteousness of Our Father.
Practical
“You are to rid yourselves of the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you are to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”
Ephesians 4:22-24
What are we supposed to do with this gift of righteousness? We are to continually renew our minds through studying God’s Word and put on the new self. We are to put on the breastplate of God’s righteousness to protect our hearts from attacks of the enemy. Knowing that sin has no power over us anymore, we are to grow more like Christ as we follow him in obedience.
A while back I stubbed my toe and most likely broke it because I was moving furniture barefoot. I have shoes and past experience told me that they protect my toes, but I didn’t put them on. Spiritually, speaking I do the same thing: I don’t put on the armor of God. Then, I am open to attacks from the enemy to the point that I fail to do God-given tasks. I not only risk injury, but also risk missing the blessing God has for me.
God has given us all that we need to live an abundant life, but we have to make use of the gifts He has given us. The armor of God can protect us from attacks of the enemy, but it only works if we put it on. We have access to a limitless spiritual account that the enemy can’t touch, but he can try to deceive us and make us think he has taken part of our inheritance, that he has hacked our account. With the armor of God, we can take back what is rightfully ours as children of God. The trick is that we actually have to put it on. The account is full, and the gifts are waiting. What will you do with what God has given you?
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