“For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One the many will be made righteous.”
— Romans 5:19

Many today think that they are good enough to make it into heaven. But what they don’t reckon with is their actual sinfulness. They are clothed in the filthy rags of their own self-righteousness, but they are too blind to see it.

How about you? You could get hit by a car and killed this very afternoon, and you could find yourself dressed for the worst ultimate, eternal disaster that you have ever even imagined. In what are you dressed? Your righteousness or Christ’s? What you have done, or what God has done for you upon the cross?

John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, also wrote Justification By An Imputed Righteousness. That is what we believe. That is what Christianity is. It is justification—that by which we are accepted, pardoned, and received into paradise—justification “by an imputed righteousness.” Not an inherent righteousness, not one of our own accomplishments of our acquiring, but something which is reckoned to us but belongs to another—the righteousness of Christ.

The great Count von Zinzendorf put it so very well in a familiar hymn:

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
‘Midst flaming worlds [in the final judgment] in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

Salvation is by good works—that is, the good works of Jesus who died on behalf of sinners.

Heavenly Father, thank You for dressing me in the white robe of Your Son’s imputed righteousness. Thank You, Jesus, that because of Your shed blood, I am clean and spotless without blemish or wrinkle…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE GO
TO CHRIST AND BECOME CLEAN.

“…then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
— 2 Chronicles 7:14

The “spiritual state of the union”? If it were a patient, it probably would have been pronounced dead on arrival—frozen in ice—no spiritual pulse at all. This is what many think, and this is what many unbelievers find reason to rejoice over. Across our nation we see:

• sexual promiscuity and perversion and rampant abortion;
• television and movies, with all of their terrible demonstrations of every kind and imaginable sin;
• terrorism threatening our lives;
• a scandalous educational system that seems more bent on producing unbelief in God, secularism, and permissiveness than teaching students how to read and write;
• endemic corruption in business corporations;
• the threat of crime, violent or otherwise.

But God gives the solution for a nation gone astray. He says, “When I shut up the heaven and there is no rain, or when I command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence on My people, if My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:13-14). May God give the grace that enough of His people will seek His face for true positive transformation throughout the land.

Heavenly Father, we have lost our way as a nation. Forgive us for in any way
being a part of the problem and not a part of the solution. Lord, give me strength
for today to help pave the way toward a true national revival…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN LIVE
A LIFE OF PURITY IN AN IMPURE WORLD.

“God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
— 2 Corinthians 5:21

I am perfect. I have no sin, no guilt, and am in absolutely perfect one-hundred percent obedience to every command of God in thought, word, and deed. That is my righteousness; but, of course, you realize I didn’t live it—not any of it. In fact, I ran the other way. I violated His commandments in every way.

It was Christ who lived that perfect life, Christ who took away my sin, Christ who gave me His obedience that made me righteous. My righteousness is not my own. It belongs to Christ. But as Paul says, “by the obedience of One the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). How are you going to be made righteous before God? “…[B]y the obedience of One the many will be made righteous.”

Theologians like to refer to what they call the active and passive obedience of Christ. His active obedience being all He did in obeying His Father through all of His earthly life. This One who could say, “… for I always do those things that please Him” (John 8:29). That white robe of obedience was woven day by day out of the pure linen of Christ’s perfect obedience with the golden thread of His deity running through it.

His passive obedience was what He endured: the scourge, the thorns, the spikes, the Cross. We get from that passive obedience the word “passion”—the passion of Jesus Christ. Now His active obedience and His passive obedience make up what is known as the righteousness of Christ. He is our righteousness.

Jesus-Tsidkenu, Jesus my righteousness, I praise and thank You today for counting Your righteousness as my own. Thank You, Father, for looking at me through Jesus Christ, as if I had never sinned…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH AND THE BLOOD OF JESUS,
WE ARE RIGHTEOUS NOW.

“…then beware lest you forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.”
— Deuteronomy 6:12

America has been blessed by God, but because of our prosperity we have forgotten Him. We think we don’t have to worry; we are not going to have a bitter winter like the Pilgrims had, where half of the population is going to starve. We are not left naked upon the brink of destruction; no, we have much goods laid up for many years. We are strong and self-sufficient. America has been mightily and marvelously helped until she was strong, and America has lifted up her heart in pride and turned her back upon God and kicked against the pricks of His spirit upon their conscience and turned unto sin.

President Lincoln called for a Day of Fasting and Prayer in 1863 and he reminded the nation of how it had forgotten God: “We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God….We have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.” Amen.

Lord, give me strength for today to recognize Your hand of blessing on us. Forgive me for the pride in my heart that wants to wrest the credit from You to me. As a church and as a nation, give us the gift of repentance and a new Great Awakening…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH AND FROM HIS HAND,
WE HAVE WHAT WE HAVE.

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
— Proverbs 16:18

There are many people who can withstand the temptations of failure, the temptations of lack or poverty, who have discovered that they could not withstand the perils and temptations of success. How many men and women have you known who did well in their spiritual life and made great progress in studying His word in Sunday School and Bible classes? They were engaged in His work and seeking the Lord; God blessed them and they were marvelously helped, until their pride deceived them into thinking that they accomplished it all on their own.

They began to say in the secret chambers of their hearts the same things that the Israelites had said after they had been delivered from Egypt. They said, “Our hand is victorious, and the Lord has not done all this” (Deuteronomy 32:27). And like the bulls of Bashan they kicked out at Jehovah who had delivered them. Therefore, God was angry with them, and He delivered them over to destruction because of their pride.

I have seen people who seem to seek the Lord, but in the end it was apparently with insincere motives. God blesses them, and soon their bank accounts are bulging and their houses are large and their cars and boats are many, and they say in their own hearts, “The Lord has not done all this. No, I did it. It was my talent, my sagacity, my business acumen, that caused this to be done.” But God gives grace to the humble, and in due time He will humble the proud.

Lord, give me strength for today to handle the gift of prosperity. Help me to recognize it is Your hand that has helped me. Help me to be generous with all that You have given me. Forgive me for the pride in my heart…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE RECOGNIZE HE IS
THE SOURCE OF ALL GOOD THINGS.

“And as he grew strong, his heart grew more proud, leading to his destruction. Then he acted unfaithfully against the Lord his God, for he entered the temple main hall of the Lord to burn incense on the altar.”
— 2 Chronicles 26:16

One day, Judah’s King Uzziah transgressed against the Lord God by entering the temple of the Lord to burn incense upon the altar of incense, and God punished him with leprosy. Well, you say that wasn’t such a great crime. Or was it? If you understand what was meant by it you would understand that it was. He was not a priest of God. He was not set aside and sanctified unto the priesthood. But he decided that this is what he would do. He should have looked forward to an old age of rest and honor and contentment. But really the problem was that he had everything that he could have desired.

This is what happens to the spoiled kid. This is why we have young people today who come from upper middle class homes, who have two or three cars in their driveways, and yet they are out knocking people in the head. They kill for the joy and excitement of doing it. They rob and take dope for the excitement because they are just bored. They have everything.

Well, Uzziah had everything. He thought that he would be the high priest. He not only usurped the position of the priest, but he usurped the position of the high priest of God. This is the same sin that had caused the kingdom to be wrested from the hands of King Saul. We must guard against the sin of pride in our hearts. As C. S. Lewis once noted, “It is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.”

Lord, give me strength for today to follow You humbly. Forgive me for the pride in my heart. Help me to remember that all good things come from You. There is nothing I have that I did not receive. Please replace my pride with gratitude…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
WALK HUMBLY WITH HIM.

“[King Uzziah] sought after God in the days of Zechariah, the one who instructed him in the fear of the Lord. And in the days that he sought after the Lord, God caused him to succeed.”
— 2 Chronicles 26:5

Following God often brings joy and contentment. But the devil is constantly engaged in his one most successful stratagem of reaching his slimy arm out of the pit of Hell and holding some bauble in front of our eyes and turning it this way and that and saying, “Ahhh, will not this bless your life, will not this make you happy, will not this fulfill your wildest dream?” And you say, “Yes,” and you bite and there is a hook. Be not deceived.

We are told of King Uzziah in the Old Testament that as long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper. And we see that he sought the Lord as long as the prophet Zachariah lived. But tragically there came a time when Zachariah died, and Uzziah no longer sought the Lord. And it shows us the importance of the prophetic office and the proclamation of the Word of God, and how many foolish people there are who suppose that because they have made some progress in the Christian religion that they can now ignore the various ordinances that God has established—they can go their own way and still live a good life. They suppose that the strength is in themselves and it is not there at all. Soon what was there dries up, withers away, and they find themselves totally incapable of withstanding the sin and temptation that they face. We need to be faithful in season and out.

Lord, give me strength for today to recognize those forces in my life that lead me toward You and those that lead me away from You, and to always choose the former and avoid the latter. Help me to choose my friends and associates carefully…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN BE
FAITHFUL IN SEASON AND OUT.

“His master said to him, ‘Well done, you good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter the joy of your master.’”
— Matthew 25:21

Those of us in the ministry should take special care to avoid even the hint of scandal, including that involving sex. Not long ago I heard about a friend of mine in the ministry who had fallen into temptation and grievous sin, had scandalized himself, his family, and the church of Christ. He had lost his church and now was in incredible trouble.

Thankfully, he had but a small church, and the scandal never made the daily news or the newspaper. I called him long distance and spoke to him. I don’t think I have ever talked to a man who was so crushed. He said, “I… I can’t go out of the house. I feel that everybody is looking at me and pointing at me. ‘There he is. He’s the one.’ I don’t know what I’m going to do. My life is destroyed. What have I done?”

Then he said something that fell on my ears like a ton of bricks. He said, “Jim, I’ll never hear Him say, ‘Well done, thou good and faithful servant.’” With that, I choked. I thought that was the saddest thing I’ve ever heard a human being say.

How about you, my friend? Will you hear those words from Him? May God grant us the grace that moving forward we so live our lives that when we die and stand before Jesus He will look us in the eyes, call us by name, and say, “Well done, you good and faithful servant…”

Lord, give me the strength to obey You and live for You so that when I die, You may say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Please, lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from the fiery darts of the evil one…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH,
WE CAN FINISH STRONG.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
— Romans 6:23

What has the sexual revolution with its promotion of promiscuity brought us? First, there is the spiritual damage. Lust wages war against the soul—many have fallen away from the faith because their lust got the better of them. Then there is the psychological and sociological damage, such as broken hearts and broken homes. Furthermore, today there are more than two dozen sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) that are epidemic in our population.

So maybe God isn’t such an ogre after all. And maybe every good gift and every perfect gift does come down from above, and not up from beneath with a hook in it and Satan at the other end of the line.

Probably the basic lie of Satan underlying all of his deceptions is the lie that the laws of God will restrict and narrow and diminish one’s life. How many people have sadly learned that just the opposite is true, when their bodies have been vitiated by venereal disease, or their minds have been scrambled by various guilt-induced psychoses or neuroses, and they find only too late that had they followed God’s path their lives would have been enriched and ennobled?

The problem is that in America today we have confused love with lust, and these are almost antithetically opposed to each other. The essence of lust is a desire to get something from someone else. Love is the opposite. Love gives.

God of truth, help us never to believe the devil’s lies. Help us to trust You fully and to obey Your plan for our lives. Thank You that when we follow You faithfully You give us “none of these diseases.” Forgive us for any past sins; give us the strength to avoid them as we move forward…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE KNOW THAT HE
HAS GIVEN HIS LAW FOR OUR GOOD.

“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory…”
— Psalm 115:1 kjv

Chuck Swindoll once pointed out that President Reagan had this saying on a plaque on his desk: “There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.”

In contrast, envy limits itself to that for which we will get the glory. Think of all the times the apostles argued among themselves over one thing—which of them was the greatest? Jesus rebuked them for that and told them that the greatest among them was the servant of all.

If anybody just sits on their God-given gifts because they are concerned that maybe people will not praise them, they are sinning. We should use the talents and opportunities God has gifted us with on a regular basis. If you’re concerned about who gets the credit, then remember what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “… For Thine is…the glory.” What is the point of any of our accomplishments? The Psalmist tells us: “Not unto us, Oh Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory.” If we live free from the worry of who gets top billing, of who notices us, of how well we are doing by some worldly status criterion, we can do much more work for the Lord.

So whatever task you find at hand, do it with all your might. And do it for God’s glory and others’ good. God knows what you do, and He will repay you.

Father God, give us strength for today to serve You diligently, even if we aren’t always recognized for it here on earth. Thank You, Lord, You who sees all, for being a just God. Let everything we do be truly for Your glory…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
SERVE ANONYMOUSLY.