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RIGHTEOUSNESS SERIES
THE SEED
OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
The main
purpose of teaching a series on righteousness is for us to develop a
consciousness and conviction of the gift of righteousness in our life, in our talk,
in our walk, in our work and in our action. We want to be conscious of the
authority and presence of God that flows through us as a gift so that we will
know that we rule and reign in this life. We have authority in Jesus’ name over
every sickness and disease, over every demon and power, over all the natural
forces in this life, over every mountain and over every valley. We want to be conscious of His authority and
righteousness of God that He has placed in our lives. That we stand before
Jesus without condemnation. That when God looks at us He looks as if we were
Jesus walking on this earth not because of our works, not because of what we
have done but because the gift of righteousness has been imparted into our
lives.
Rom. 5:17 For
if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who
received abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life
through the One, Jesus Christ.
We talk about ruling and reigning in righteousness
in Jesus. It is the gift of God. God gives it to us as a gift. It is given free
to you to rule and reign. And we need to be conscious of that gift that we have
received.
In this message, we want to look at what
we call the seed of righteousness. In other words, we want to look at the
growth of righteousness. It is not the growth of merit but it’s a growth of a
seed. Righteousness is a gift of God that He deposited into our heart.
Lets look at Rom. 3 and we want to tie it back
to the last message and pick up from there.
Note the second phrase it says here being
witnessed by the Law and the Prophets. That means that even in the Old
Testament there was an evidence of the gift of righteousness being imputed upon
His people. The word imparted has the sense of receiving inside. The
word imputed has the sense of receiving as a covering. Even though the
time for Jesus has not come yet to reveal the fullness of the majesty,
holiness, righteousness of God, yet even in the old covenant there have been
glimpses of that righteousness of God, which is not the righteousness of man or
that of the law. So you have two phrases. The first phrase is apart from the
law. That tells you its different. Its something that is different. Its
not produced by the law. The law does not manufacture it. It is apart from the
law.
The second phrase that Paul brings to you
is that it is being witnessed. It has been seen. There were glimpses of
it in the Old Testament. Some Old Testament folks like Abraham and David saw
flashes of that gift of righteousness and even experienced the gift of
righteousness of God apart from the law. There were little glimpses that God
gave to them until the day of Jesus’ first coming. It just like you give
presents to your children on Christmas Day and since they could only open the
boxes on Boxing Day, they would wonder what’s in the box. Your son would
eagerly ask, “Is it a toy car? What shape is it? Is it something to play?” So
he wants to find out what it is. He may even want to shake the box to hear what
it’s inside the box. There are glimpses of the gift of righteousness in the Old
Testament that God showed in order to reveal His ultimate Christmas present to
us in Jesus Christ of Nazareth. But there were glimpses of that righteousness
from God in the Old Testament.
I bring to you the revelation that Paul
had - no one could be righteous through the law. There is no one who could
actually live to fulfill the law. The law was given not because we could
fulfill the law a hundred percent. But the law was given to prevent the world
from coming to further destruction. It acted as a barrier, a barricade to hold
back further lawlessness for a moment of time. For example, if this pulpit were
falling in my direction, I would hold it back for a moment. But by my holding
it back is not a permanent solution. It’s a temporary solution until some of
you come up and help me to put it back properly. Sometimes you have structures
that are in danger of falling down, like the
As Paul explained in the book of Galatians,
the law is given to hold back the process of sin and delay it. But God knew
that no one could ever fulfill it. So tells us in Rom. 3:22 even the
righteousness of God; through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who
believe. For there is no difference; then verse 23 includes man of God,
woman of God, people who knew Him in the Old Testament, people who knew Him in
the New Testament he says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory
of God.
In Romans 1, it tells us here in a
different way. Rom. 1:18 For the wrath of
God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,
who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. He talks about the revelation
that was about to come.
Romans 3 again he concludes in verse 10
onwards As it is written: There is none
righteous no, not one; there is none who understands; No one, you ask,
“What about the Old Testament folks?” None of them was able to reach what God
really wanted them. Some of them have done the perfect will of God but none
could reach into the heavenly standard that God has for man to be reconciled to
God. So how did these other men in the Old Testament function? How did all the
prophets, the priest, the kings, and the good people function? They functioned
through a gift of righteousness. They had a small little impartation of the
gift of righteousness but it was not given as much as in the New Testament.
In Rom. 4 it tells you. In the last
message, we showed how David had that gift of righteousness. It was the same
with Abraham.
It was the same with Noah. Of course, Noah
was a god-fearing man compared to the other men of his time. But when his life
is compared to God’s standards of righteousness, he still would not qualify to
be saved. That is why the book of Genesis did not say, “Noah was a very godly
man who never did anything wrong. Therefore God was obligated to rescue him
from judgment by means of the ark.” Instead, the book of Genesis says, “Noah
found grace (or favor).” When the bible says, “Noah found grace,” what does it
mean? It means that Noah had the gift of righteousness imputed to him because
he believed God. That was one of the early glimpses of the gift of righteousness
found in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament heroes of faith had the
gift of righteousness. I use this word as carefully as the bible uses it. In
the Old Testament, the gift of righteousness is imputed but in the New Testament,
it is imparted. Even Paul used the scriptures very carefully. In Rom. 3:22 he
says to all and on all. That is imputing and an imparting. In the Old
Testament, the gift of righteousness cannot live inside them. They only
received a small little token of that gift of righteousness and it was imputed
on them.
In the last message, we also counted David
among those who had that revelation of the gift of righteousness. We talked
about the scepter of righteousness and rule and reign of righteousness. Righteousness
will cause you to reign. Its not really the king
himself that reign – it is the righteousness that gives them the ability to
reign. Now Paul wrote in Romans 4: 6, just as David also describes the
blessedness of the man. Paul did not say the blessedness of the man who
earns righteousness nor the blessedness of the man who
keeps the law and therefore merits favor with God. But he says the
blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.
Even David had an understanding and a revelation of the gift of righteousness
and to receive it from God. He allowed it to flow in his life and therefore he
ruled and reigned.
What we are saying before you is one of
the greatest revelations of Christianity. Even some Christians today study
Paul’s writings but don’t understand the revelation he has brought. The
revelation is that the righteousness of God is a gift that we need. No one can
function without that gift of righteousness, either in the Old Testament or New
Testament. So all the Old Testament heroes of faith had this gift of
righteousness imputed upon their lives. It was in a sense not them but it was
the gift of righteousness of God that caused them to be what they were. That is
quite a revelation. In other words, they were what they were because of the
gift of righteousness. They received that gift of righteousness first and then
they became righteousness by yielding to that gift. They didn’t become
righteous first and then receive the gift of righteousness later. The same principle
that as many as received Him to them He gave power to be the children of God
also applies here. As many as receive the gift of righteousness from God,
He gave power to be righteous. There must be reception before becoming. The
receiving comes before the becoming.
All the Old Testament folks, Elijah,
Isaiah, Daniel etc were unworthy, every one of them. They were what they were
not because of their genetics. Not because they were born of the right lineage.
Not because of any ability on their own. They were what they were because
somehow they have learned how to yield to the gift of righteousness that God
desires to give to His people.
Now your next question would be, “Did God
give this gift of righteousness only to those people or was He willing to give
to everyone?” For God to be God and to be a fair, God He has to be willing to
give it to all.
Then our next question, “When is He
willing to give it to all?” Through the blood covenant.
Not everybody receive but He always left the blessings there. He told them the
way to get themselves into the position. To receive means you got to be in the
right position. This is just for illustration. Now I am going to give this man
sitting here this pen. As I give it to him, he has to stretch out his hands to
take it and then he has to be in a position to receive it. I am not changing my
position but he is changing his. He has to be in the right position. What
happens if he doesn’t put his hand out to receive? Obviously, he has to do the
minimum to receive it. “Bill, this is
for you. Take it, Bill.” He must do something to receive. I am not asking him
to run two hundred rounds around the building or to leap over the wall and run
to the tree. It depends at least on the minimum that is required for him to do
to receive the pen.
The other thing that is required is what I
call position. Sometimes we are like a little teddy bear. God loves you and you
are cute. Sometimes God is working in your life and God will only work in a
certain way. But you are in the wrong position so when God is working, He is
rubbing your fur. And you don’t like it because He is rubbing your fur the
wrong way. What are you going to do? I mean it is just like someone rubbing
your hair the wrong way. Imagine someone keeps rubbing your hair the wrong way.
God is God and He changes not. Yesterday, today and forever He never change. So
if you find that your fur is rubbed the wrong way you know what you should do.
You turn around. So if you find that you are not receiving you are not in the
right position. There is a minimum requirement and adjustment to bring a person
to the position to receive. That is what the law and the blood covenant are
for. The law didn’t give us the ability to accumulate the merit to receive. But
the law was the minimum requirement, so that it could position us in a position
to receive.
Let me show Paul’s illustration in the
book of Galatians on the law. Gal. 3:23 But before faith came we were kept
under guard by the law kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore
the law was our tutor to bring to Christ. Not to save us the law was to
convict us, to prepare us so that we are ready to receive Christ. In a
spiritual sense, the law was the minimum part to get you to put your hands up
and say, “God I need you.” To put your hands up and say, “God I surrender. God
I cannot make it on my own. O God here are my hands.
Nothing in my hands I bring; simply to the cross I cling.” That was the minimum
for Bill to receive the pen. It was our tutor.
Galatians 4:1 Now
I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a
slave, though he is master of all. Listen very carefully if you do not get
hold of this revelation of righteousness even though it is yours, you will live
like a slave although you could be a master in the affairs of life. Paul is
illustrating that way that we were under guidance until the time appointed by
the Father. The law was the guidance but we were slaves although we were
supposed to be masters in God. The job of the law is to get us to the position
to receive. That is why God is a fair God. He gives to everyone even in the old
covenant a conscience and some measure of law. Paul says in Romans even those
who do not have Moses or like the Jews in other countries of the world existing
in that time they have a law onto themselves, revealed in their conscience.
Do you know this is a strange thing? All
over the world, people understand the blood covenant, even without the
revelation of Jesus. Animal sacrifices were present even before Moses’ time.
Animal sacrifices were present in the Chinese culture, in the Indian culture,
in the Malay culture, in
Do you know why the revelation of these
blood covenants was given to peoples of all time? They were the minimum
requirements to bring us to the position to receive the gift of righteousness.
I can show you in the bible that whenever there were people who had the Spirit
of God working in their lives, there was a measure of the gift of righteousness
or gift of God working in their life although they didn’t yield fully to it -
yet they had it. Such people include Balaam. Balaam was not an Israelite. Do
you realize that Balaam was called a prophet? Balaam knew God and he had
communion with God and he was not even an Israelite. He doesn’t know anything
about Moses. But Balam did receive the general gift
of righteousness that God desired for everyone to receive.
The first question is, “Why does God want
to reveal to us this gift of righteousness when we come into this world?” In
this life, we only operate by His gift of righteousness. We cannot be what we
want to be unless God gives the gift first. We must receive first from His hand
before becoming what He has given to us.
The second question is, “Did God give everyone a fair chance to receive this gift of
righteousness?” Yes, He did. And even on judgment day, He will still judge on
this basis of how we have yielded to the gift of righteousness that He has
given to everybody.
Now the third question is, “If that is so
why do people like Balaam becomes so unrighteous?”
That’s the question we want to deal with -
the growth of righteousness. You see God wanted to reveal that no one can be what
he or she is unless the gift of righteousness comes into his or her life. The
gift of God in some spirit form comes in us first. And it’s almost like asking
the question, “Which came first - the chicken or the egg?” If you believe in
the bible, you got the answer to that question. The chicken came first because
when God made the birds of the air He didn’t make thousands of eggs. He made
the flying creatures and then they lay eggs. In the same way physically, each
one of us will to a certain extend looks like our physical father. This is
because you have inherited physical genes from your parents. And physically you
took on part of their structure. It was their genes that made you what you look
like. It controls the programming of your physical body. If the genes are
affected then the change starts happening. But the seed of your genetic make up
comes first. In the same way look at the Old Testament people or just the New
Testament but all the people in the Old Testament too all of them were what
they were because somehow they received the seed of righteousness. And it
changed them and made them become what they were. Now not all who received the
seed of righteousness became righteous because they didn’t know the principles
that we are going to teach today about yielding to the gift of righteousness.
Let me show you one man: his name is Saul
in the book of I Samuel. Now he definitely couldn’t be king by himself. He is
the example of an extreme case. He had no ability to rule and reign over any
nation. He was a person who had lots of personality flaws and problems. Could
he become a better person? Yes, because God has a will for everyone. And with
that will, He gives different gifting and different workings of His angels and
Spirit even on the day you were born. Read John chapter one.
You will find that Jesus is the Light that lighted every man that came into
this world. Somehow, God did try to bring that gift of righteousness to Saul.
We either resist that gift, or turn away from that gift or we don’t know how to
receive that gift. If Saul had received it, he would have been slowly changed
to a more likeable person instead of being what he was.
Now David was trained to be a fighter for
God. And even in his young teenage years, he had occasions where he developed
bravery and courage in his life. And he passed all those tests, the tests of
defeating the lion and the bear. By the time he faces Goliath he was a very
brave and courageous man. How many young men would want to go and fight against
Goliath who had a sword and shield and you have only five stones and one sling.
No wonder Goliath said, “Do you think I am a dog?” But there was something in
David, some gift in his life that made him brave. He yielded to that seed and
that seed grew in his life.
Sadly, there are some like Saul. When God
gave him a fresh dose of the anointing of God, he didn’t know how to use it.
This is what God said to Saul in I Sam.10:6 Then the Spirit of the Lord will
come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man.
That’s what the gift does to you. That’s how powerful the seed of God could be.
Today scientists are tinkering with very
dangerous tools more dangerous than before. Man has discovered how to tinker
with genes. It can be dangerous because we don’t understand everything yet. You
may have discovered a gene that causes something and when you tinker with it,
this gene may also produce something else. They ran tests on mice using altered
genes to stop them from producing nitro oxide. Now nitro oxide is important in
the functioning of some gland in the brain. The purpose of this test is to see
whether this can relieve the nerves. They breed it so that the mice could have
a shortage of that acid. They found a side effect. They found that the mice grew
abnormally long hair, faster than normal. If they can create freaks of nature
using altered genes, the field is thrown wide open for them to produce Frankensteins, miscreants and other abnormalities.
If mankind continues toying with the
genomes for the next two hundred years, I don’t know where mankind will be
heading for. They would be daring enough to try to produce a super race or some
mutants that once only existed in the imagination of artists from Marvel
comics. This is where the danger is. God has made all genes in its perfect
state for balance. Scientists may produce a champion but in the process, that
champion may lose some essential parts of intelligence or conscience. He may
end up a fiendish psychopath. We may never know the physical side effect. It’s
the most dangerous realm that man is dealing with. But it is such a powerful
realm. Who would have thought that altering one little tiny structure in your
gene could change other parts of your being. And that
is from one tiny genetic seed.
It is the same way in the spiritual realm.
When God imparts into our lives and spirits the seed, it could produce
different things. You will literally become another man. Isn’t that the story
of Christianity in the New Testament? What is the New Testament message? II Cor. 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new
creation, old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new.
Don’t we go to sinners, robbers, all kinds of people who are struggling in
their lives, who are having all kinds of problems, and didn’t we come to them
and tell them all they have to do is to accept Jesus? Somehow, when they accept
Jesus they will be able to take out that old man. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to
happen to all Christians. You see a sudden change in some Christians but in
other Christians, you see that they change slowly. In some areas, it is very
immediate and in some, it is slow.
What is the problem? Some people solve this
problem by telling themselves, “Since I am rather slow in this area, I must use
good works to speed up progress here.” No, the solution to that problem is that
we need to teach people how to yield to the gift of righteousness. You cannot
change yourself. But your spiritual genetic must be altered first and the gift
of God had to alter it. We need to learn how to yield to the gift. That gift
will turn you into another man. In the Old Testament, they had a temporary
measure of that. But in the New Testament, the potential is there to change a
person genetically spiritually. God says to Saul in I Sam. 10:6 then the
Spirit of the Lord will come upon you and you will prophesy with them and be
turned into another man. And let
it be, when these signs come to you, that you do as the occasion demands, for
God is with you. This is a different story and not the story of Dr. Jackal
and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jackal is a good benevolent man. He goes to his laboratory,
drinks some compounds, turns into a monster and becomes Mr. Hyde.
Here is a yielding to the Spirit of God.
Remember who Saul was. He was a cowardly, shy man and has a very low
self-esteem. But the Spirit of God came on him and he turned into another man.
Now the problem is not whether that change cannot occur,
but whether the change can be permanent. Now I want to point to a truth in our
lives, to encourage those of you who may be struggling in different areas and
habits in your life. The problem is not
that the change cannot be done but that the change doesn’t last. I can talk to
any Christian who is struggling in any area in his or her life. Now that were
times when you were strong and you could overcome temptations easily. There
were times when you were weak and you fell. Then you got up, became strong
again but in a moment of indiscretion, you fell into sin again. You pray to
God, “Lord, forgive me,” and then you went on again. Then you were strong
again. The problem is not that you don’t have the desire to be weak sometimes.
Sometimes after being charged up and strengthened in a prayer meeting or
worship service you could take on the world, you could live sinless, holy, and
pure. You have no desire for anything in this world but God, God. Monday you
are O.K. Tuesday, Wednesday your eyes start looking at the world. On Thursday,
your eyes inadvertently saw some unbecoming pictures on the Internet and your
heart turned aside. This is just a simple illustration but it gets the point
across. It is not that the change never came. I know from time to time
Christians receive a touch from God and under that touch, you know that you are
nothing. But how do you keep it?
Saul had that change in his life but he
had no ability to maintain it permanently because he did not learn how to yield
to the gift of righteousness constantly. The secret is in understanding how the
gift of righteousness comes to your life. When you understand plants, you know
all the plants have different abilities. All plants have different abilities. I
discovered that different plants are good for different things. There are some
plants that you can put indoors but there are some plants that you cannot. Some plants like watery ground and some plants like dry ground.
So for your gardening to be successful you must understand the plant. You must
understand what the seed is for. And how that seed can grow. How it can
produce. An experienced gardener told me that all fruit plants need a lot of
sunlight. We tried planting some tropical fruit tree indoors and it died. Being
a persistent person I said, “May be it’s the soil.” And we planted another one
and it died. Then I say, “Lets try planting a guava tree and it nearly died.”
But the point is every plant and every seed have different requirements. We
need to understand its requirements and meet its requirement so that it will
bear fruit.
We receive many types of seeds from God.
The seed of righteousness brings us into a position of walk with God. We must
understand how to allow it to change us. I am talking about character
transformation and not just gifting. It is the same like the anointing of God.
There are different types of anointing. You must understand each type of
anointing because each type of anointing operates differently. For an anointing
to preach a message in a stadium requires a change in personality to do
different things. An anointing to counsel people is different. Anointing for
healing cannot operate for other areas. Each requires a different perspective.
It is the same with seeds. The seed of righteousness needs certain requirement
for us to yield to it.
Lets look at the bible and see how scriptural
it is to refer to righteousness as a seed and righteousness as a growth. Lets turn to Isa. 61 Here it talks
about the anointing of God that is upon Jesus. But there it suddenly has a
reference to our lives.
Verse 1-3
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me.
Because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to
heal the brokenhearted.
To proclaim liberty to the captives;
And the opening of
the prison to those who are bound.
To proclaim the
acceptable year of the Lord.
And the day of
vengeance of our God.
To comfort all who mourn.
To console those who mourn in
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise
for the spirit of heaviness.
That they may be
called trees of righteousness.
The planting of the
Lord that He may be glorified.
Now if righteousness can be symbolized as
a tree then there should be no problem for righteousness to be symbolized as a
seed too. All trees come from seeds. The bible has always illustrated us as
trees. The bible even illustrate that we are the fertile ground. The Word of
God is like a seed that comes into our hearts and God plants it and helps us to
grow.
We now look at the book of II Corinthians
and I want to point to a certain progression of Paul’s teaching about
righteousness. II Cor.
3 Bear in mind that this is the second epistle to the Corinthians. In the first
epistle, he has already spoken to them about Jesus being our wisdom and
righteousness. Now he comes to chapter 3 and he says in verse 8-9 How will the ministry of the Spirit note more
glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the
ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. Now he talks
about righteousness coming forth in our life as a ministry, the ministry of
righteousness.
Then he moves on to II Cor.
5:21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for
us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. He is not talking
about our righteousness. He is talking about the impartation of God’s
righteousness to His people.
Then as we move on to II Cor. 9:10 Now may He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you
have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness. That means that
righteousness can grow. Righteousness is a fruit. Righteousness is a tree.
Righteousness begins as a seed. And as we nourish and cherish it, it grows to a
tree and a tree produces fruit - fruits of righteousness.
In the book of Phil.
1:11, Being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus
Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Isn’t it firmly established that
righteousness is a gift and righteousness is a seed. Our message today is that
righteousness is a seed that can grow into a plant. In the last message, we saw
the scepter of righteousness. Even here, you can find the consistency. Remember
Rom. 5 that those who have receive the gift of righteousness and the abundance
of grace shall rule and reign in Christ. If you look at II Corinthians very
carefully the passage that we read about the fruit of righteousness increasing
he talks about both also. He says here in II Cor. 9:8
God is able to make all grace abound towards you. Verse
10 increase the fruit of your righteousness. Same thing. It is the abundance of grace and the gift of
righteousness that helps you rule and reign in life, spiritual life, natural
life, physical life, business life, every area of life. Abundance of grace and
the fruit of righteousness are all tied up together.
Righteousness is a seed, is a tree and is
a fruit. We have established the fact that righteousness is a seed. It’s a gift
from God into our life. We are what we are because of the seed that God has
planted in our life. The secret is how to receive it. And then how to keep it
until it produces fruit in our life and changes and makes us become what He
wanted us to be. Now how does that process take place? The secret is in
yielding to the gift on our inside. Yielding is a powerful gift. In the natural
world and in the spiritual world the key to excellence is in yielding.
Lets say you are a badminton player. You have
a talent for playing badminton. Yet a gift has to be trained and developed. If
you hold the racket with too much energy, you cannot play well because you are
not supposed to use your energy to grasp the handle tightly. Your energy should
be used to hit the shuttlecock. So if you tensed yourself in holding the
racket, a lot of energy is wasted. Even if you have a talent for a particular
game, you must also learn how to get into the “flow”. Sportsmen and women know
what a flow is like. Even when they play there is a rhythm they enter into. It
becomes beautiful. And even in dancing, there is a flow. Of course, when you
worship the Lord it doesn’t matter whether you have a good voice or a bad
voice, we all can worship the Lord. But when it comes to ministering to people,
it comes to a gifting. Some people have a gifting and when they operate that
gifting, it is so beautiful. See in the secular world they call it a flow.
It is similar in the spiritual world. There is a divine flow that you learn to yield to. And when God wants to do anything, you have to enter the flow of what He is doing. And you learn to discern what God is doing and you flow with it. The secret is in yielding. In the natural world if you learn something, you yield to your gift. When an artist wants to paint a picture, he must flow with the talent and gifting in his or her life. So the secret is learning how to tap on the gift.
How do we maintain the gift of righteousness
permanently? It is important to understand that flow. It is all in the key word
yielding. How do we yield? The yielding is more from your soul side. Let
us look at Romans. There are just two points I want to give on this subject of
yielding. The first word is the word that I call it reckoning. Rom. 6:4 Therefore
we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in
newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His
death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing
this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be
done away with, that we should be no longer be slaves of sin.
Now how do we bring that out? Paul comes
to verse 11 Likewise you also, reckon
yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now reckoning involves a mental
process. It involves our mind. The first is to understand the truth of
nothingness. Unless you know that you can do nothing without Him, you know you
can do some things with Him. Understand and accept that it is not us but His.
We have to accept it mentally; reckon it mentally. There are several sub-points
to this key. The first key is the key of reckoning. Part A is that reckoning
involves that whatever sin or habit or weakness has moved you into sin and
ruined your life had been dealt with, - somewhere deep inside you may not feel
like it but you must believe it. Abraham didn’t feel any children. He didn’t
even see any children. He didn’t even hear the sound of children. He looked at
his own poor withered body and found that there is no way he could have a
child. He looked at his wife past her reproductive years and knew that there is
no way she could have a child. You know what they have to do. Accept what God
said. They must believe what God said. You must believe that you are no longer
the old person that you were. Many time people try to make it stick to you, “O
you are always like this.” And when you accept what they say about you, you are
finished. Part of the reckoning involves believing that the old part of you is
dead. That’s the A part.
The B part in verse 11 but alive to God
in Christ Jesus. What you are
sensing on your inside bubbling in you is no more you but that Christ in you.
You are still conscious of being alive.
The second key is found in Romans 8:1 There is therefore no condemnation to those who
are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to
the Spirit. Then verse 5 For those who live according to the flesh set
their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the
Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death, but to be spiritually minded is live and peace. Here it says to be spiritually minded. The
word spiritually minded has a special expression of its own as we look
at in this series. But for now as we introduce the subject the word spiritually
minded talk about also a consciousness of God on your inside.
Let us look at the consciousness when you
accepted Christ. Chapter 7:22 For I delight in the law of God according to
the inward man. So there is a delight on your inside. So the first part is
the reckoning. You have to believe it. Your mind must be brought into the
position to accept and believe. It is no longer you that live but Christ who
lives in you. That somehow the old nature has been dealt with in a powerful
way.
The second part is to feel for Him and
sense Him on your inside. It is just like this light. This
light produces heat to a certain extend. In the natural world when you
stand under this kind of spotlight, there is actually a higher temperature.
Then under this fluorescent light, you don’t have much heat coming to you. You
have a lot of light but not much heat. Normally when you walk up and down, you
are not conscious of it. But if I were to tell you, “I want you to sense the
difference of the heat under the fluorescent light and under the spotlight,”
then you would be able to feel it. Before that you cannot but when I tell you
its there you believe its there because it is the truth and when you seek to
sense it, you are able to find it. It is just like it takes one person to
discover that oxygen is the main combustible element that causes things to
burn. Straight away all over the world, scientists conduct the experiment to
prove or disprove it. However, that oxygen was there all the time but we didn’t
realize it until somebody discovered it.
Now in the spiritual, it’s the same way.
When Christ comes to you, He lives in your spirit man even though you may not
feel different. I guarantee you if you sense His presence in you and you yield
to His presence, you will find Him thinking and speaking and doing things
through you.
The second key is what I call the
consciousness. First is reckoning, second is consciousness. Because if you
don’t reckon you won’t even pay attention to the consciousness. We have to
believe first. And as we are conscious of God and you practice the
consciousness of God, that seed of righteousness grows more and more on your
inside. Then it can become stronger. And it becomes stronger because you are
feeding it with the Word of God. You could sense the anointing of God. And as
you learn to sense the anointing of God in your prayer life, in your worship
time, after sometime when you are out there, you will naturally flow in the
anointing of God wherever you are. In the supermarket, of course, your mind is
still busy looking for the items you want or the best prices but you are not
thinking about the anointing of God. But if you want to you could be conscious
of God. When we become conscious of that seed sometimes that
seed can actually be speaking to you and saying, “I like to be in this part of
your life now.” You could see it bubbling on your inside. He says, “I
want to do this part. Will you let me do that part?”
And Paul learned to yield to that. It says
here in the book of Acts 18:5 When Silas and
Timothy had come from
In the same way if you understand this
truth, it will be the opposite of the usual worldly expectation of falling into
sin every now and then. It becomes very hard to fall into sin. The
consciousness that Christ and the gift of righteousness are in you would push
you away from sin. It’s the key of consciousness. The other is reckoning. These
two combine powerfully. We have seen how the seed of righteousness can grow on
our inside. We have studied the fact that righteousness is a seed. It needs to
be nourished, cherished and taken care of. And that seed will take care of you.
It becomes a tree and it becomes your life. It becomes your personality. In
that way, God’s character and God’s seed become your character and personality.
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