Practice Righteousness

 

    When you become a Christian you are adopted into God's family making you righteous.  It is your journey working out your faith that you learn how to practice righteousness.  You are learning on how to live out what God has given you to honor His name.  You have to be intentional to learn God's expectations and how obedience protects you.  It is not always fun.  It is time consuming, but it is how you learn how to practice your righteousness.

    You practice righteousness until the breastplate of righteousness feels comfortable.  At that point it is a part of your lifestyle.  You discard your old lifestyle to replace it with a righteous one.  Righteousness is what will protect you from Satan having a stronghold in your life.  You choose to step out of the darkness into the light everyday.

    The point of practicing righteousness is that it makes your old sinful nature feel uncomfortable.  It exposes who you were to the point that you can't stand to look at it any more.  You are not going through the motions wanting to look righteous or be righteous.  You genuinely want unrighteous habits removed from your life to never return again.  It is what leads to repentance that causes real change in your life.

    When you have repentance that causes lifestyle change it drives you to dig deep to the roots of your sin to remove them.  Only when you remove the roots of sin will they be gone to never infect your life again.  It is not behavior changes.  It is your heart changing.  As your heart changes to look more like Jesus the more Satan may attack you, but the Holy Spirit is protecting your heart.  

    You become righteous at salvation, but you have to maintain your righteousness every day to keep it clean and powerful.  Battling your personal sin is not easy.  Just because you want to be a good Christian does not mean that it will come natural.  You have to be intentional and work at it.  

    You have to forgive yourself when you mess up, but be find a way to do better.  The Holy Spirit will direct you on how best get rid of your sinful nature.  This is why it is called a journey, so don't give up when it is hard.  Your righteousness is essential, so the practicing of it needs to be logical.  Make conscience life choices that will bring you closer to God instead of further away.  

Deuteronomy 28:1-6, Psalms 1:1-3, 23:1-6, Proverbs 2:1-8, Isaiah 58:13-14, Matthew 5:3-10, 23:25-28, Romans 7:14-20, 13:11-14, Galatians 6:7-10, & Ephesians 4:1-5:9, 6:1-4