Being Righteousness

 DEVOTION

THE 2^ND LETTER TO THE CORINTHIANS

BEING RIGHTEOUSNESS

2 Cor 5:20-21

20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

NIV

Although we spent time considering the preceding verses and even pondered on being an ambassador of Christ, it might be good for us to take one more look at us being reconciled to God. We certainly understand that He reconciled us, or as we considered being changed or exchanged from the old to the new. But Paul also tells us that on Christ’s behalf, we should be reconciled to God. God has certainly done all that he can do as far as making all the conditions right for our reconciliation. He has done a change in us in that he made it possible to change us from the old to the new through our faith in Jesus Christ. But now there is work we must do, in reconciling ourselves to God. There is a change within us that we must do. First, we must accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, but there is a process that we might forget. We also need to repent of our sin, give up our sin, exchange a life of pleasing self for a life of pleasing God. We must give up any opposition to God and fully submit his terms of mercy. We must lay aside any hostility and surrender completely to his Lordship in our lives. There is no question that we are not saved by works, so none of us could boast, but that we are saved by faith and faith alone. But that salvation does have terms. We can no longer live as we once did, we must make changes in our life. We no longer can give in to every temptation simply because we want to, but we should resist the devil and because of our resistance, he will flee from us. This does not mean we will never sin, for that would be blasphemous to say we are sinless, at least if we reside in this tent. However, Jesus was sinless as he dwelt in the form of man, yet he became sin for us, or as some manuscripts say, he became a sin offering for us. He who was without sin became sin and paid the price, death so that we would not have to. Because of what Jesus did for us, we now can become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. If we are in Christ, we stand as the righteousness of God, being declared holy and blameless in his sight. What a blessing to be the righteousness of God.