He Did It All For You (5 page)

You are welcome in the throne room of Almighty God as if you had never sinned—made righteous by the redeeming blood of Jesus. The righteousness that is yours is a mighty force reserved for the sons of God, washed in His blood. Your right-standing gives you boldness and thoroughly equips you to handle every situation that comes your way. You have His ability and His strength to face anything the devil brings against you.

In the next chapter, discover your covenant rights and allow this force of righteousness to change your life!

by Kenneth Copeland

The Force of Righteousness

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:17-21).

Any person who is in Christ is a new creature—a new creation. He has been completely re-created. Old things are passed away, all things are new, and all things are of God—not part of God and part of Satan. Some people think a man is a schizophrenic when he becomes a Christian—that he has both the nature of God and the nature of Satan. But this is not so.

In the new birth, a man’s spirit is completely reborn. It is then his responsibility to renew his mind to the Word of God and use the Word to take control of his body.

Paul wrote to the believers in Rome, who were born-again, Spirit-filled Christians, instructing them to renew their minds with the Word (Romans 12:1-2). Their faith was known through-out the world, but they had still not learned how to control their minds and bodies with the Word. He wrote to the church at Ephesus along the same lines saying, “You have put off the old man and put on the new man, so quit lying and cheating and acting ugly toward one another” (Colossians 3:9-13). All these people were believers. They had been re-created—made the righteousness of God—but most of them didn’t know it!

Second Corinthians 5:21 tells us that God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us “that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” As believers in Jesus Christ, we are the righteousness of God Himself!

What is
righteousness?
It is not a “goody-goody” way of acting or something that can be attained. Righteousness is a free gift from God, through His grace, provided by Jesus at Calvary. Now I am not referring to our own righteousness—the Bible says that in the eyes of God “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). However, we have been given the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ.

Through our traditional thinking, we have confused
righteousness
with
holiness.
We think righteousness is the way you act, but this is not true. Holiness is your conduct. Righteousness is what you are—the nature of God.

Let me make this clearer. The word translated
righteousness
literally means “in right-standing.” We have been put in right-standing with God. Jesus is the mediator between God and man.

When a man accepts Jesus, he is moved into a position of new birth. He enters into the kingdom of God as God’s very own child and a joint heir with Jesus Christ. Consequently, there are certain privileges, rights, and freedoms that he has as a child of God because he is in right-standing with Him.

Accepted in the Beloved

We didn’t get in right-standing with God by being good and acting right. We got there through faith in Jesus Christ and His redemptive work at Calvary. When we accepted the sacrifice of Jesus and made Him the Lord of our lives, then God accepted us. He had to! You see, God had already accepted Jesus’ work on the cross. He judged it as good, glorified Jesus, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies. He called Jesus “God” and inaugurated Him into the highest office in the whole universe. Therefore, the Father is obligated to accept us when we accept Jesus. Our conduct has absolutely nothing to do with it!

Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 5:19 again: “To wit [or to know], that God was in Christ
,
reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them
….
”
In other words, God does not hold our sins and trespasses against us. Very rarely has this whole gospel been preached—only pieces of it!

We have heard that God will not forgive a sinner until he confesses his sin, but this is not true. God has already provided forgiveness and is not holding our trespasses against us. This teaching about confession stems from 1 John 1:9.
“
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us....” However, this letter was written to Christians to teach them how to maintain their fellowship with God.

In 1 John 2:1 the Apostle John wrote, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for
our
sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

John was referring to the sins of a Christian, instructing his fellow believers to partake of Jesus’ advocate ministry. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved
the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son....” God loved us and Jesus gave Himself for us
while we were in sin.
God is not holding our trespasses against us. He is calling us to make Jesus our Lord, accepting us on the basis of Jesus’ right-standing with Him and, in turn, putting us in right-standing with Him. The only sin then, keeping anyone out of the kingdom of God, is the sin of rejecting Jesus and what He has provided (John 16:9).

As a believer, you are a citizen of the kingdom of God and have a right to everything in the kingdom. There is a covenant between Jesus and God, signed in the blood of the Lamb (Jesus), which provides these rights for you. If Jesus is your Lord, then you are in right-standing with God—you have the righteousness of God (whether or not you partake of it). You have a right to everything God has. This is staggering to the human mind, but nevertheless, it is true. Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

Sin Consciousness

“For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect” (Hebrews 10:1). Under Levitical Law, an animal had to be offered every 12 months to atone for the sins of the people. The word
atone
means “to cover.” Actually, this word is not found in the Greek New Testament when it refers to Jesus’ sacrifice.

The word we translate
atonement
really means “to remit,” or to do away with. These sacrifices could not completely do away with sin, they simply covered it for a year. The blood of Jesus did not just cover sin, it remitted sin—it did away with sin completely!

With these thoughts in mind, let’s read verse two. “For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.” If the blood of calves and goats had cleansed them of sin, they would have had no more sin consciousness.

Sin consciousness produces defeat and a false sense of humility. It attempts to be humble by debasing itself and pushing itself back. The Lord did not say, “Debase yourself.” He said, “Think of others more highly than you think of yourself.” This means even when you are standing tall as the righteousness of God, you should elevate your fellow Christian above yourself, making both of you stand tall. When you debase yourself, you make yourself lower than you are.

If you asked many Christians, “Are you righteous?” they would say, “Me? No!” They are trying to be humble. They are afraid God wouldn’t like it if they said they were righteous. Actually, they are speaking from the way they feel—from the way they have been trained—from ignorance of the Word of God concerning righteousness.

This kind of sin consciousness has caused us to focus on and preach sin, instead of righteousness. Actually, we have preached a form of condemnation on ourselves, and Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” We have carried “sin tags” with us that are stumbling blocks in the growth of a Christian.

Every time we start toward the righteousness of God, Satan will jump up in our path and say, “Remember the ugly things you’ve done? Don’t expect God to forget all that! Who do you think you are? You’re too unworthy to approach God!” But the Word says the blood of Jesus purged our sins—they no longer exist. So we should take the Name of Jesus and drive out this sin consciousness.

What do I mean by a “sin tag”? A good example is, “Well, I’m just an old sinner saved by grace.” No, you
were
an old sinner—you got saved by grace! Now you are a born-again child of God!

Almost everyone is familiar with this scripture: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This scripture has been used untold numbers of times to preach sin. But the Apostle Paul, writing this letter to the body of believers in Rome, was instructing them about righteousness. Let’s read this whole portion of scripture:

But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Romans 3:21-26).

This is one sentence, constructed around the righteousness of God. Through sin consciousness, we have taken out one phrase—the only verse not referring to righteousness—and preached it with no mention of the other verses. Therefore, everyone knows about sin, but not many know about the righteousness of God. We are well aware of what we have been born out of, but have no idea what we have been born into! Colossians 1:12-13 says, “Giving thanks unto the Father…who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.”

Faith in Your Righteousness

You are a born-again child of the living God. It’s time you began believing in the new birth and what Jesus has provided for you. Realize that the Father has invited you to come boldly (confidently, without fear) to the throne of grace with your needs and requests. The Bible says that when we pray according to His will, we know He hears us and we know we have the petitions we desired of Him (1 John 5:14-15).

When we pray in the Name of Jesus, we immediately get the ear of God. First Peter 3:12 says, “For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers.” James wrote that “the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16).

The following is an example of prayer from this righteousness consciousness:

Father, I see in Your Word that I have been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He has provided certain rights for me, and healing is one of these rights. I receive it now in Jesus’ Name, and I thank You for it. Your Word also says that You are faithful and just to forgive me of my sins when I confess them, so I take this opportunity to confess this sin and get it out of my life, in order to maintain my complete fellowship with You. I receive Your forgiveness now in the Name of Jesus. I may not feel righteous. I may not feel forgiven. But Your Word says it, so it must be true. Satan, I now put on the breastplate of righteousness and come against you with the sword of the Spirit. Healing belongs to me. My body belongs to the God of this universe. I have given my body to Him, so in the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, take your sickness and disease and get out!

You have a
right
to expect your heavenly Father to answer. You have not prayed in your own name, but in the Name of Jesus. His righteousness (right-standing with God) is yours! A righteousness consciousness expects God’s Word to be true and plans for success.

This kind of prayer is tough in the world of the spirit and will bring results in the physical world. After you have prayed to God and taken authority over Satan, you should take authority over your physical body. Speak to it in the Name of Jesus and command it to conform to the Word of God that says it is healed by the stripes of Jesus. I have done this and had my body to shape up immediately.

You see,
the world of the spirit controls the world of the natural.

A Spirit created all matter. His name is Almighty God, and He is our Father! So His righteousness is now ours!

Folks, it is time to believe the Word of God. Did you know that there is no longer a sin problem? Jesus solved it! He stopped the law of sin and death at the Cross and Resurrection. When a person receives salvation, he is put into right-standing with God and re-created by the Spirit of God as if sin had
never
existed! The only problem we have is the sinner problem. It is man’s choice. All we need to do is choose righteousness and walk away from the sin problem.

It is time to move in line with this revelation. You
were
a sinner—you
have been
forgiven. You are now His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus! Begin to stand on this, instead of your past life. As far as God is concerned, your past life is forgotten. Now
you
need to forget it.

Your past life died the death of the Cross. In Galatians 2:20, the Apostle Paul said it this way: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me….” As I was studying the Word one day, I noticed 2 Corinthians 7:2 where the Apostle Paul was writing to the church at Corinth and said, “Receive us; we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man.” When I read this, it startled me, and I said, “Lord, I’ve caught this man in a lie! I know he wronged and defrauded men. He persecuted the Christians, putting them in prison for no legal reason. He stood by and watched as Stephen was stoned to death!” But the Spirit of God spoke to my heart strongly and said,
You watch who you call a liar! The man you are talking about died on the road to Damascus!