GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS PART3. If you have perservered with me in the last two pages you may well be asking "how does God deal with me?" Or "how does He change things in my life so I end up looking like Jesus and produce all that terrific fruit in 1 Corinthians13?" Glad you asked that. What I am about to say is by no means comprehensive, if it were, then you could just read it and do it and - this is my point in these three messages - so please pay attention! This is what I know to be true. God changes you by your circumstances. By the every day things that you come across, by the bad things that happen, by exposing stuff that is inside you and you didn't even know it was there! What the body of Christ has failed to recognize is that the Holy Spirit is active in the every day events. He does not cause them, but He is active in your behalf.

He wants to help you to change your responses to difficulties. As an example, for over a year now the verse "I will harden you to difficulties..." has been jiggeting about my brain. Over and over again. Guess what God is doing in my life? He has renewed my mind, now He wants to change my actions and attitudes. Let me put it in the modern day venacular. THE HOLY SPIRIT WANTS TO BE THE VEHICLE FOR YOUR FIRST RESPONSE! He is longing to help you not to react in the natural but to act in the supernatural. When people see the supernatural response they will know humans can't do that, and we will all get to give our testimony about Jesus!

The Holy Spirit wants to do things Christ's way! And Jesus' way was to listen to the voice of the Father, watch what He was doing, and then do that! So if we are to do things Jesus' way, we will have to listen to the Spirit, watch what He is doing and do that. This is because Jesus sent the Spirit of God back to help us to do what HE would do if He were here. Jesus obeyed by faith and so must we. If a blanket obedience to the ten commandments etc., was going to do it, then Jesus would not have made them harder! (Matthew 5)

So how do we do these things His way? Total dependance on the Holy Spirit is our only answer. And to be honest with you, this answer is one most people do not like. It is too ethereal, too out there, and we need to have something to do ourselves. I don't believe it is pride, although in some cases it can be, I believe our faith is immature faith. This is talked about extensively in the book of Hebrews. The way for our faith to mature is to rely on the Holy Spirit when every atom of our body screams out for something we can see, feel, hear and touch. This is why many people end up at the altar, they want the instant "zap," the instant answer. But God builds things layer upon layer, precept upon precept, line upon line.

Learning to rely upon the Holy Spirit takes a decision, which is followed up by practising. The Holy Spirit is only too happy to help us, but we need to practice and hone the skill of listening and obeying so it comes automatically. Why? In the heat of a battle, the skill you need needs to be already in place! You certainly need good "ears" and "eyes" so you can continually follow whatever He is doing in your life, but some things should be simply an automatic response. We should know the Spirit of God so well that we can tell Him from our own inner voice, from the voice of a thousand demons, and lastly we should know HE IS OUR ONLY PLACE OF REST IN THE MIDST OF TURMOIL. We have to stop going after the quick fix and dig in to Him 'til His voice is uppermost and essential to us.

As I said before, this is not a comprehensive study but the most important point is that we have the righteousness that Christ Himself gives us. Just like Abraham believed God, marched out of his homeland and went after the promised land, which included an impossible heir; we have to walk away from our feelings, mind sets, sometimes even our church doctrine, and trust in the finished work of Christ, for righteousness. AND HIM ONLY. It is not our works, it is not what we believe (belief can be wrong - that's why our minds need to be constantly renewed by the Word of God - purified by the washing of the water of the Word), it is definitely not how we "feel!" It is what Christ did. I hope that makes you rejoice as much as it makes me. We are a fortunate people. Bless you PS I have just been listening to some great tapes by a man of God I respect, FYI! I am NOW going through the bible FOR MYSELF! to check what I heard! I have learnt the hard way not to swallow everything that comes my way. :0)