Praise the Lord

So many people have secret fears, secret worries, and secret concerns. I honestly think that a large majority of people never get around to getting still long enough to even think about, “what is going on in me?” we can dress it up and take it to church, we can whoop and holler, jump up and down, we can bring our church face, smile at everybody, and learn all the Christian lingo — praise the lord, thank you, Jesus, hallelujah — get a bumper sticker, get a rhinestone Jesus pin, buy the t-shirt, buy the tapes, have the library, but what’s going on in you?

If you have peace in you, then what goes on around you won’t bother you nearly as much. If you know who you are in Christ – I mean if you’re rooted and grounded in Christ and you’re rooted and grounded in his love and you know who you are, it’s not going to matter so much what other people think because you know that you get up every day and that you do your best and you love god, so you don’t get so concerned about other people’s criticisms and judgments. But if we don’t know who we are, if we’re trying to find out who we are, then every little thing that happens out here affects us in an adverse way. So I just want to encourage you to ask yourself, “Do I know who I am in Christ? Am I walking in righteousness?” when I say walking in righteousness, yes, I’m talking about doing things right but I’m also talking about doing things right out of a revelation of the fact that you’ve been made right with god.

God has called us to a holy life. He never asks us to do anything that he doesn’t give us the ability to do, so he has planted a seed of holiness in us by giving us his holy spirit. God expects us to walk righteously, he expects us to do what is right, so he gives us righteousness as a free gift. The moment we receive Jesus Christ as our savior, the bible says, he takes our sin and he gives us his righteousness. God takes our mess. He takes everything we deserved, which was punishment and misery, and he gives us everything that he deserved because he did everything right. “He that knew no sin became sin, that we might be made the righteousness of god in Christ.” well, the bible says you have to put on righteousness.