“Fight the good fight of faith.” – 1 Timothy 6:12
THE FIGHT OF FAITH is the only battle Christians are called upon to fight. There wouldn’t be such a fight of faith if there weren’t enemies or hindrances to faith. But when we understand the enemies to faith and avoid them, our faith will grow.
One main hindrance to our faith is the lack of understanding of our righteousness, or our right standing with God. James 5:16 states that the prayer of “a righteous man” avails much. A lack of understanding of what righteousness is holds more Christians in bondage than any other thing. In my opinion, righteousness is one of the most misunderstood subjects in the Bible.
Paul makes two significant statements about righteousness: first, “with the heart man believes unto righteousness” (Romans 10:10), and second, when we receive Jesus and we are born again, we receive “the gift of righteousness” (Romans 5:17).
Righteousness is a gift. Too often, we have associated righteousness with good works. The Bible teaches good works and right conduct, but all of our good works and right conduct will never make us righteous. If good works made us righteous, we wouldn’t need Jesus.
You will never be any more righteous than you are right now!
You Cannot Grow in Righteousness
Another fallacy about righteousness is that we’ve thought we had to grow into some kind of “high spiritual state” to be righteous. Well, thank God, we can grow in the Lord and we can develop spiritually. But we cannot grow in righteousness. You will never be any more righteous than you are right now!
In the Old Testament, God set up a system whereby the blood of animals was shed to cover the sins of His people. God did not hold sin against them; instead, He “counted” them as being righteous (Psalm 32:1–2).
In the New Testament, the Bible says we have a better Covenant established on better promises (Heb. 8:6). In some Christian circles, we’ve heard it said, “Our sins are covered.” But our sins aren’t covered. Our sins are washed away by the blood of Jesus!
2 CORINTHIANS 5:17, 21
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
21 For he hath made him [God has made Jesus] to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
Did you notice the phrases “in Christ” and “in Him” in these verses? In Christ we become new creatures (v. 17). In Him we become the righteousness of God when we are born again (v. 21).
When you receive Jesus as your Savior, you become a new man—a new creature in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). God does not make any “unrighteous” new creatures.
Romans 10:10 says, “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness.” How does a man become righteous? He believes unto righteousness—because he believes on Him who is our righteousness, Jesus Christ!
When you know this truth, you’ll know that God hears your prayers just as quickly as He hears anyone else. Your standing with God is just as good as any other Christian’s.
God doesn’t love one member of the Body of Christ more than another. We’ve got all kinds of wrong ideas about this, such as “If I could just get a real man of God to pray for me, God would answer.” Some Christians may have learned how to take advantage of what belongs to them better than you have, but they are not any more righteous than you are. God won’t hear them pray any more quickly than He’ll hear you pray.
I’m thoroughly convinced that in these last days, bands of believers will learn how to take their place in Christ, knowing who and what they are in Him. Talk about prayer warriors! Talk about consecrated, dedicated lives of prayer! Talk about getting results! And they won’t have to be dependent on someone else to pray to get answers for them.
God will hear you! In our churches, we’ve been trained to leave it up to the pastor to do all the praying. But when you gain understanding of what righteousness is and what it means to you, you will be able to step out from that narrow place of theology where you have lived and step into the boundless fullness of God!
Some people say, “I can see from the Word of God that we’ve received remission of past sins, and we’ve received the gift of righteousness. I can see that we’ve been made righteous new creatures, but what about those sins and wrongdoings I’ve committed since I’ve become a Christian?”
Satan used this very thing to defeat me after I learned these facts about righteousness. He said, “Since you’ve been saved, you’ve sinned. Remember when you got angry and lost your temper?” (He knew he could no longer dispute my righteousness, because the Word is true and I’d discovered the truth.)
I felt so guilty that I’d missed it. But I began to look at the Word again, and I found this truth in First John: “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
When a man sins, he is under condemnation and he loses his sense of righteousness. But when he confesses, “I’ve sinned and I failed. Please forgive me, in Jesus’ Name,” God does two things. According to First John 1:9, God forgives AND cleanses us from our sins. If God just forgave us our sin, it wouldn’t help us much. We would still be under the condemnation of sin. But God actually CLEANSES us from all sin.
What does God cleanse us from? All unrighteousness! Not part of our unrighteousness, but all of it.
After I saw this in the Word, I came back to the devil with that news and put him on the run. Up until then, the devil had me on the run. Now he’s the one who turns and runs. He found out that I know what the Word of God says about my righteousness in God through Christ!
Author
Kenneth E. Hagin
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