You too can Live, A Righteous Life!

Knowing what I know now, I have a deeper love for Jesus Christ. Today in my devotional time I was reading about the righteousness of Abram (before he was called Abraham in Genesis 15:6), and thought to myself wow! How can one live a righteous life? Then I continue to read a commentary that said "it's your belief not your actions that makes a person right with God." This was a great way of explaining it to me, but I needed to understand righteousness more. In the quest to find out what the bible had to say about righteousness I penned a few questions in my journal call *My beliefs* 1.) Do I believe God is who He says He is? If so...then I must serve Him as Lord. 2.) Do I believe He did what He said He did? If so...then I must praise Him for His marvelous works, sacrifices, and purpose... 3.) Do I believe He will do what He said He would do? If so...then I must follow Him, read his word, obey His commands and live according to his perfect will. I began to quietly pray, 'Yes, I believe who you say you are Lord, and what you said you did, and what you will do, but I feel that I have let you down by my selfish actions and that I will never be righteous. Instead, I feel like Cain instead of Abel.' In Genesis 4:2-7 reads (in the NIV) "Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brough some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel brough fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast (or dejected meaning sad, or depressed). Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at you door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." I put myself in Cain shoes and asked, 'how in the world do I master this, so that I can do what's right in your sight O Lord and be accepted by you.' 2 Peter 2:19 (is now one of my favorite scriptures) says, They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity-for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him." What is depravity? Depravity is moral corruption-it is considered the innate corruptness of human nature, due to Adam's fall. Okay yes, I know that we were born in sin and shapened in iniquity, now how can I die to sin so I can become righteous. It can only come through Jesus Christ, but I have accepted him, so what now? Romans 5:12-17 says, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned-for before the law was given, sin was in the world." *The law did not come until Moses brought the 10 commandments penned by the finger of God on Mount Sinai.* "But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come." This is where I leaped for joy vs 15. "But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man's sin: The judgement followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brough justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who recieve God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." I've heard this quoted many times "shall we continue in sin that grace may abound, God forbid," but did not understand the depth of that passage. In the NIV it says, (in Romans 6:1-4), "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life," *and that life is righteous because of Jesus Christ.* I continued to read future and found out that "Obedience leads to Righteousness" in vs 16. I also learned that I need to offer my body in slavery to righteousness, which leads to holiness, and the result is Eternal Life. "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" vs. 23. Amazing!