GOD'S RIGHTEOUSNESS. "For I am not ashamed of the Gospel (good news), of Christ, for it is God's power working unto salvation (for deliverance from eternal death) to EVERYONE... For in the Gospel a righteousness which God ascribes is revealed,..." Romans 1:16a&17a
In the Gospel a righteousness that God ascribes is revealed. Ascribes is an old fashioned word. It means: "to refer or attribute to a supposed cause or source." Obviously the source in this case is God Almighty. To say this another way: God has given us a way to relate to Him rightly, and that way is Jesus Christ. If you are born again there is no dispute about that remark, and I am going on the assumption that you are "born again." If you are not, please get hold of a bible, (the public library has many versions available for borrowing), and read the book of John in the New Testament, chapter 3 in particular!

In Romans Chapter 4 verse 3, there is a great description of how Abraham came to be right with God. Abraham was the first human being to enter into the above righteousness. The book of Romans explains this clearly. It goes on to say about Abraham in verse 5 of the same chapter, "...his faith is credited to him as righteousness." And continues in verse 6 "Thus David congratulation the man and pronounces a blessing on him to whom God credits righteousness apart from the works he does." It was said of Abraham HE BELIEVED GOD.

At the end of my opening verse: (Romans 1:17B)"...both springing from faith and leading to faith..." Paul explains why this righteousness works. It comes from faith and leads to more faith. When we are born again, what we believe comes from faith. (This faith comes from the written word of God. The bible, and the revealed word of God as in someone's testimony/preaching of the word/ evangelistic outreach etc.) But, OUR FAITH IS NOT MEANT TO STOP THERE. Our faith is to lead us to act in faith. In my opnion this is where most people get stuck. They do not know how to act in faith so they do what the preacher, or the author and even sometimes the bible says; in faith. In their minds, they are acting in faith, so that action meets the above criteria.

This is where the difficulty comes in. "Man shall not live by bread (the bible, teaching, authors!) alone! But by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." (Emphasis mine) I'm want to say this as clearly as I can. JUST BECAUSE A MAN OF GOD SAID IT, WROTE IT, OR YOU READ IT - EVEN IN THE BIBLE, DOES NOT MAKE IT EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD! (Whoa, I hear you say, what do you mean by that?)
If every word that proceeded from the mouth of God was in a book in total, GOD WOULD HAVE HANDED ABRAHAM THE BOOK!! God wants relationship. He walked and TALKED with Adam in the garden. (What did they talk about? Maybe creation, maybe Who God was, I dunno - ask HIM!) The body of Christ has gotten into "insurance" mode. Insurance sounds like this: "I have NO CLUE what God is saying and what this man, woman or bit of the bible says is good, so I'll just do that and THAT WILL COVER IT! (ps I am not saying it is wrong to obey the bible, or even to read Godly literature, - just bear with me!) But please remember this - satan quoted the bible! And he will do that to you constantly! he will bang you over the head with everything you are not doing. he will constantly remind you how far you fall short of the mark. The intention of the Holy Spirit in producing the bible was to have something we could read and He could quicken to us daily. By quicken I mean, the verse jumps out at you and you exclaim - "I get it now!"

That does not happen to me very often you could say. That is perhaps because you read to "do your duty by God" and read selected passages and fill up your daily quota. Try this: ask the Holy Spirit to pick a book for you - and, until you get good at this system, READ THE NEW TESTAMENT - this part is your inheritance, and you need to KNOW what God has promised you. Am I saying you should not read the Old Testament? Of course not. In Psalm one the psalmist says "I meditate on this law day and night." (MY translation.) But for your own growth in Godliness, ask the Holy Spirit to pick a New Testament book, start at the beginning, and carefully read it every day until the Holy Spirit speaks to you. Sometimes you will read the whole book and get nothing until the last chapter - but you will find you needed everything that came before that chapter to put what God wanted to say in context.

I totally understand that people are busy and reading God's Word like this is time consuming. But do you want God to speak to you or not? Do you want to be changed or not? The bible says: "In Him we live and move and have our being." And to be "in Him" etc. hearing from God becomes imperative! We need the righteousness that God ascribes for us daily. We need to hear from Him daily. It is not good to just grab a concept and stick it inside your mind momentarily, thank God and walk out of your door thinking you have made contact with Him. You need fresh manna every day! Getting manna took time, and it will take your time. But it is worth it.

We should be competing as a body, hands up and waving every time the pastor says: "Who's got a testimony?" WE SHOULD ALL HAVE A TESTIMONY - DAILY. Do you really think God doesn't want to bless you every day? Of course He does. Sometimes that blessing will spill into the natural world where we will SEE it, and sometimes He wants to bless us BY HIS PRESENCE, "because in His presence there is fullness of joy."
God wants to walk with us, do we really want to walk with Him? Because if you do, it will cost you - time, sleep, effort, energy. So my point in this page is this: read the bible until you 'hear' something from the Holy Spirit. Tell Him you don't care how long it takes, you will wait. (Because, as you are waiting - "they that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, they will mount up with wings as eagles...") - thank you Isaiah! I bless you to wait for fresh manna daily. Amen. More on this subject on the next page.