What if?

What if we really believed God lived in us?

What if we really believed Jesus was alive now...in us?

What if we really believed what Jesus said?

What if we were only allowed to claim as beliefs those things we clearly put into practice?

Righteousness is Christianity 101

"Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness." Heb 5:13 NIV

Remember, I said this is Christianity 101. You've got to get this, or nothing else in the Bible will be clear to you. Everything you think you know will be tainted if you don't have the mentality that your right standing with God depends completely on Jesus and nothing else. To use the analogy from Hebrews, lots of the meat in the word will be awfully tough to chew if you think you have to earn or maintain good standing with God at any point.

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I used to have a recurring dream, alternately about college or high school, probably brought on by residual stress associated with the terrifying pressure of finding all my classes at the beginning of each semester. I’m a bit directionally challenged, so it was a big deal for me. In the dream, which spanned an entire semester, I never found the right class at all, but spent 5 months wandering in and out of rooms full of people who somehow, miraculously, mystifyingly, always knew exactly where they were supposed to be.

Freshman year of college, we were all supposed to have a big brother or sister to show us where all our classes were, but I don’t think mine did that. He showed me where to get pizza and meet girls and some other stuff I’m sure, but as for classes, I’m pretty certain I was on my own…again.

Well, I’m about to be your spiritual big brother, and I’m going to show you where you all need to go first. Before you do anything else, before you learn anything at all about the Bible, you have to get a hold on what Hebrews 5 tells us is “Christianity 101.” Ok, that term isn’t in the Bible per se, but the idea is. This is what you absolutely must know in order to survive in the Christian life. This is the most basic of all the basics: righteousness.

Why is righteousness called Christianity 101? Hebrews 5:11-14 talks about some people who had tried to get by without learning "the teaching about righteousness," and were therefore not maturing at all. In fact, the writer calls them overgrown babies. It's quite a slam if you really look at what these verses say.

What is the Bible’s "teaching about righteousness?" It’s three-fold as I see it. First, the New Testament is clear about the fact that human righteousness is worthless. In fact, I'm relatively sure you have to come to terms with that fact at some point to experience genuine conversion. You need to know you're hopeless before a Holy God if judged on your own merit.

Second, righteousness is a gift from God through faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross. He became sin for us, took on the dark ugliness of all that is twisted, perverse and evil in this world, so that He could pay its full penalty in hell on our behalf and rightfully bestow on us the life He earned by His own sinlessness. In this, He literally remade us out of the pure substance of His own righteousness.

Third, the righteousness we have been given and have become is God's righteousness. Therefore, it is perfect, unchangeable, immutable, incorruptible, inexorable, and eternal, and is completely unaffected by our behavior. That means that at no point in the life of a believer is it even remotely possible for him or her to become even one iota less righteous than God is. For that to happen, God's righteousness would have to be decreased or compromised, and that's not possible.

I think most of us have a handle on number one, and many of us probably get number two. However, the third part is the one that often causes our natural and religious minds to short-circuit. I encourage you to look at some earlier posts on righteousness, and get acquainted with this powerful teaching that is all through the New Testament.

Remember, I said this is Christianity 101. You've got to get this, or nothing else in the Bible will be clear to you. Everything you think you know will be tainted if you don't have the mentality that your right standing with God depends completely on Jesus and nothing else. To use the analogy from Hebrews, lots of the meat in the word will be awfully tough to chew if you think you have to earn or maintain good standing with God at any point.

Many Christians experience life much like my recurring dream, wandering from room to room wondering why they feel so lost and why everyone else seems to know where they are. I was there for a long time, and was often like a wave tossed by the wind. Now, by contrast, a deep sense of security, clarity, direction, and confidence reigns in my mind, even in times of outward uncertainty. I can point to one thing that has made the difference: I know I am righteous. I finally made it to my first class, and now it all makes sense.