Righteous, regardless

Psalm 48:10
According to Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth; Your right hand is full of righteousness.

I don’t like feeling condemned. It makes me feel bad, worthless, and not good enough. I think that’s why Paul wrote Romans 8:1, as a reminder to me (and you) that in Christ there is no condemnation.

Have you ever had someone come to you and tell you what you’re doing wrong? I often wonder where people who rarely chat with me otherwise find the gall to come to me only to declare my misdoings. It’s as if they need to condemn me to feel secure in their own righteousness. At times like these that I have two options. Option one: be Gary. Take up a good fighting stance, get a sight picture, and with a steady trigger pull, POW! Unload both barrels, empty all my magazines, fill that target with holes. Option two: be the new Gary (2 Corinthians 5:17). This option doesn’t involve retaliation, justification, or anger. This option only requires that I recall who Jesus is and what He has done. End of story!

This is hard for me only in the sense that by nature I am an arguer. Honestly, I love to argue; it’s the way God made me. For years I used this God-given gift to attack people, but suddenly I’m realizing that He’s given me this gift for His glory. What do I do now? I argue Jesus and my standing with Him. I’m not concerned with my standing with people. I’m certainly not concerned with how people presume to know my standing with God. All I can argue now is what I know, based on scripture, to be my status with God Almighty.

So, what is my standing with God? Well, as far as He’s concerned, I’m made perfect by the blood of Jesus Christ. He sees me as He sees His own Son: righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). As a believer, I am in Jesus, and as He is, so am I (1 John 4:17). Scripture tells me that Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12) and this Psalm tells me that His right hand is full of righteousness. Therefore, I conclude, I am righteous, being that I am in His right hand!

Knowing that I am righteous in Christ and that I can’t lose that righteousness gives me a firm foundation on which to stand. When accusations come my way, when condemnation is thrown at me, my argument is simply this: I am righteous because Jesus has made me righteous. There is nothing that can separate me from the Father’s love (Romans 8:38-39 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.).

The world and the worldly belief desires to see us condemned. But we know that the Devil, not the Christian, is the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:10)! When someone feels the need to come to you with condemnation, remember who you are, an heir to the throne of God with Christ (Romans 8:17), and remind that person of Jesus’ finished work at the cross.

At the end of the day I know this truth: I am righteous regardless of what I have done, am doing, or will do, because Christ has made me that way. There is no condemnation for me because I am in Christ. Accusations and condemning speech cannot change my status with the King. His right hand is full of righteousness and that is where I am!