The Manx Den

I have become the righteousness of God in Christ.
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 [show] For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (ESV)

I was really feeling the need to induldge myself in the word this morning – I was feeling down because of hearing about all the relationsahip problems our freind Eric has with his girlfreind and her sons, and my insulin pup was unattached during the night.

So I did a search on Google on ‘the beauty of God’. looking for some study material that would carry my mind to better subjects. I found, after a few more search refinements, a document listing points answering’who does God say I am.

A little after I was done writing, this song came up on my playlist. It plays automatically once the page is done loading, so be sure to hit the pause button on the flash musicplayer to stop it if you don’t wanna listen.

Jill Phillips – “Nobody’s Got it All Together” I Am

The above text caught me because it was a little hard to understand. How in the world can I be called ‘the righteousness of God’? That’s a pretty high title, and overwhelming if you are one used to saying ‘no, I’m not much, but thanks for the compliment’…
But why do our minds answer folk in that way? According to Genesis, when God created humans, he made them in his image. And since it is written ‘God is love’, that means that we are meant to be mirror images of true and perfect love.

Last time I spoke with my father on video chat, he pointed out just how shocked he is every time he sees a couple ‘shack up‘. It’s his term for living together as a couple without getting married, and I can certainly understand why he’s saddened and scared by it. Folk see no point in making marriage vows under some sort of authority – it means they have a responcibility to God and eachother.

What responcibility? Should not the love between a man and a woman be light, easy, and simple? Why should there be any promises be made when the words ‘I love you’ have already be exchanged? How is there any higher vow to another person than ‘I love you’?

If we are perfect mirror images of true love, then there is no need to say ‘In hardship and in good times I’ll stick with you’ – it becomes something we do automatically for eachother.

But we are not perfect mirrors of love. 1Corinthians 13 [show] [13:1]If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (ESV)
tells us all about the state of perfect love, and goes on to talk about how it changes us and contrasts the selfish love of our everyday world. ‘For now we see in a mirror dimly…’ v.12 says – we can see ourselves and others only through tainted lenses, as if we all walked around with colored sunglasses on. Have you ever worn a pair of sunglasses with dark blue lenses?

Blue lenses strip nearly all red from what you see when you look around you. It changes what you see, so you don’t see the real picture. And if I could percieve what I have been, unloving, unwilling, torn and tattered and angry because of what I have experienced and done in my life, I’d be abhorred.

No one in that state is righteous, clean, attractive or beautiful – years of dirt and grime cling to their souls, and it’s no small wonder that a mother can yell at her child, a son call his father an ‘ugly pig’ or a father to drown himself in alcohol when the ugliness and selfishness of our wold shows it’s face. When trapped between a wall and a rock, and the boss is your worst enemy and your wife a woman who’s lost all her glimmer and hope, it’s then that we need grace.

Grace is a person who steps in and gives you anything – everything you need, even at the cost of their own life, so that you have hope again. Grace shows love – perhaps by smiling at you along the street, or by paying the last bit of your ticket – or by serving you soup in the homeless shelter with eyes that do not judge the rags you wear, or the dirt on your face.

We go about wondering ‘Why does God let children in africa suffer hunger’, or ‘If God cared, we would not have war’, or ‘If He really cared about me, things wouldn’t be this way!’. Our heart cries out for justice and real, satisfying love, instead of the fascimilies and pale versions we have.

“… to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” How powerful these words! It says Jesus took on our faults and selfishnesses – our crimes and took the axe and guilt on our behalf. For a person that has accepted that gift – dreamt and admitted that he is the guilty party, and that he would go to hell if he died there and then… For such an individual, everything in life suddenly is turned on it’s head. Freedom blossoms out of this simple realization – out of faith and belief.

“Blessed are those who have not seen, yet believed.” John 20:29 [show] Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (ESV)
– Jesus here is talking to his follower, Thomas, after coming back from the dead and showing Tom the holes in his palms, feet and the wound on his side. Tom followed Jesus for three years, noting down everything Jesus said and did with skeptical notes and thoughts – but it was only when Tom saw the physical reality – the grim truth of a physical body with open, bloody holes – did he believe. If a lifelong skeptic like Tom had to see his dead and buried freind Jesus talking, walking and wearing the same wounds, then what does that say about a person who really believes in Jesus’s death and ressurection now?

We dare believe in the impossible, and call upon a man who died. We dare to refuse what everyone else says cannot be, and believe in a holy God, that the world was created by the hands of love, and that the dead can live.

” 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:8-9 [show] Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (ESV)

And being the righteousness of God? That is when a believer is like a child. When what Jesus says is, simply is. Where every turn on the walk down the street is filled with wonder, because the sun shines so brightly (goodness, even that massive ball of nuclear-powered hydrogen and helium is made by God?), and where when your freind just has to hear about the new world you’ve discovered.

Our becoming the righteousness of God is when we are willing to bury our face in bible verses, feed on the invisible food in the bible, and understand what we read.

It’s not easy, but it happens when we are filled with the holy spirit (this entry will become all too long if I write about it now). The Word itself says that God’s spirit gives us the gift of clarity when we read the bible, and opens up the word to us in ways we’ve never seen before – every day.

Being the righteousness of God is being his hands and tools here on earth. Bowing our will daily to a higher purpose than our own plans, and giving up our trip to the clothing store to visit a freind who’s down and comfort them.

God is Just in an unJust world – he is – we just have to ask him to show us his desires and plans for reaching out to those who need him.

So if your bible’s been collecting dust, your church family keeps asking where you are on sundays, or if all the joy has drained from your everyday life, ask for the holy spirit. Ask for power, renewal and strength. Ask for money, for joy, happiness.. Ask Jesus by name for life, and life more abundantly. Be willing to admit your fauts and have Jesus straighten out the kinks in your weakened spine, and be willing to use some real spiritual muscle.