'I will call them My people, who were not My people,
And her beloved, who was not My beloved.
And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
You are not My people,
There they shall be called sons of the living God.'" [Romans 9:25-26]
To borrow a phrase (yet again) from Henry Blackaby: "The names of God reveal the nature of God." And what do we know about God? We know that He does not operate outside of His nature. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He does not change. Why is this important as it relates to establishing your heart? It's important because if you question who God really is then you will always struggle to rest in Him. In the area of faith righteousness, you must firmly believe that God is who He says He is, has done what He has said He has done, and will be faithful to carry it out in your life.
One of the names of God that has been revealed to us is: Jehovah Tsidkenu - The Lord Our Righteousness. This is pivotal in understanding what faith righteousness is all about. It's all about God being whom He has always wanted to be in our lives. I believe that He has always wanted to be the righteousness that we live in. That our right standing with Him was never about carrying out a specific set of rules and standards but honestly living in relationship with Him. The Law in many ways revealed the heart of God but what the Jewish people did with His standards went way beyond His original intent. They actually created laws to keep you from breaking the Law. Therefore, righteousness was reduced to a standard or a way of life and was completely dependent upon what you did or how you performed. All the while, never realizing, that this is who God has wanted to be for His people.
The Lord is comfortable being your righteousness. He understands the weakness and frailty of man. He has longed to live in relationship with us since the days of creation. To see God outside of relationship is to limit Him to being a Divinity that is occupied with rules. Which I don't believe was ever the case. What God told Israel was that He had placed before them life and death/blessing and cursing. If they chose to walk in life, it would produce blessings. If they chose to walk in death, it would bring a curse. It happened exactly the way God said it would. Read their history. They always had a choice to walk in Him.
And on that note, I want to bring you to the place of establishing your heart in Him. You have a choice. What I am about to share with you will produce life and blessing in you over and over again. What you believe will determine how you behave. And what I'm after in your heart (and mine) is that we function from a proper perspective. What Jesus accomplished through His death, burial, and resurrection is far more reaching than we have understood. What He accomplished, He offers to us. What He gained is ours to enjoy. But if we continue to live in the place of questioning our righteousness then we will never be able to establish our hearts in the heart of God.
The most common practice of establishing our hearts in righteousness is taking "in Christ" verses of Scripture and saying them over and over again until your faith is moved to believe it. As simple as this may sound, it will take some time for you to believe it. Why? Because you have believed lies for so long. Rome wasn't built in a day and a healthy mindset isn't either. It will take some time, but I can guarantee you that it is well worth it. The more my heart has become convinced that what God says about me is true, the more I live from that place. Therefore, righteousness isn't something that I create but something that flows from the very core of who I am in Him. Does that make sense? Think about it this way: If you are a mother or a father but struggle to believe that about yourself you will always struggle as a parent. Once your heart is convinced of this fact, you can begin to father or mother your children. We typically see this happen negatively. Someone has a child but have convinced themselves they are not ready to be a parent. What comes out of their life? Everything else but being a parent. However, once we establish our hearts in that position of being a father/mother then what flows out of our life looks like parenting. This may seem like a poor example but the reality of being a parent came for me when I held my child in my arms for the first time. I looked into her eyes (16 years ago yesterday), my heart was moved, and I determined that I would be everything that little girl needed. When you look into the heart of God and allow your heart to be moved by what He says about you, then you can determine to live from that place. You will allow God to define you and the rest will take care of itself.
Sure...there will be times that you have to go back into that quiet place and re-establish yourself. It happens to the best of us. However, the more you do it - the more you convince your heart that you are truly in Him - the more your life will reflect that position. Sin no longer becomes the issue it once was because righteous people have died to sin. It's all about learning to see things from God's perspective. Sin becomes what God says it is. Holiness becomes what God meant for it to be. Everything about our lives will flow from His heart. We learn how to be and not just perform.
Imagine the joy of the Gentiles when they began to hear the words of Hosea being proclaimed over their lives. For centuries they were outside of the covenant of promise, outside of the blessings of Israel, and strangers to all that was God. But now they were His people and His beloved. I'm sure there were times when they had to stop and shake themselves. Could this be true? And all we have to do is read about the explosion of church growth that happened throughout the book of Acts to see how the Gentiles rose to the occasion and embrace this incredibly Good News. It wasn't easy. It wasn't without problems. However, when persecution came to the Jewish church, they were able to find community within the Gentile fellowships. This was a visible demonstration of what Paul celebrates in the letter to Ephesus, the mystery being displayed, that God would create "one new man" in Christ, Jew and Gentile together in Him. What a beautiful thing.
Take some time to discover the In Christ verses for yourself. Here's a website that can help:
http://www.ficm.org/index.php?command=textwhoamiinchrist
Get to work (lol). Get to the work of establishing your heart. Be moved in your faith. Be excited about all that God will do in and through your life in the process. Your life is getting ready to change!!!
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