Everlasting Righteousness, and Rest for My Mind

This is an incredible revelation all the more.

So much so, that I have to write about it in this fashion.

I never understood how important, how worthwhile, how essential is the gift of righteousness, but now more than ever I sense its power within me.

Thank you, Jesus, for being my righteousness!

For the longest time, I believed that what I was thinking, what I was feeling, all of that would knock me off that place of rest, that place of peace, that stance of righteousness.

Despite all the times that I heard Pastor Prince explain to me "Don't fight or struggle against bad thoughts. Replace bad thoughts with good thoughts," I was still struggling with those bad thoughts. Lustful thoughts, bitter thoughts, angry thoughts, whatever thoughts that were coming to mind.

My head would get very stiff, tight, upset. I was trying to block or stop those thoughts. It's amazing how much these habits become ingrained in our bodies. It really takes time to be set free. Grace takes time, but it is so worth it!

I am now realizing that bad thoughts, bad ideas, disgusting fantasies, disturbing intimations cannot knock me off my rest in Christ Jesus, the righteousness that I have been made in Christ Jesus!

My righteousness cannot be unmade! No matter what is going on around me, no matter how I may feel, or the upsets, the concerns, the heartaches around me, I will shout as Habakkuk the prophet:

"Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation." (Habakkuk 3:18)

The wicked may surround me (Habakkuk 1:4), but the righteous by faith live! (Habakkuk 1:4)

The very word "Habakkuk" speaks of God's loving embrace! He embraces me, even in the midst of these hard, tough, harsh times, and whatever hard, tough, harsh thoughts I may be thinking or wrestling with.

The most negative, embarassing, hurtful events that have happened to me cannot take away my standing, my righteousness in Christ. This is incredible!

What's more, I used to fear allowing myself to be spared from the sense of shame and guilt following wrongdoing. Yet the Bible is very clear: "The goodness of God leads to repentance" (Romans 2:4). People have this crazy idea that telling people that they are righteous, apart from works, apart from their efforts, will lead them to go crazy with sin.

It's not grace that does that. It's the desire to be free from bondage, it's the need to break away from stultifying restriction on self. Once we receive and keep receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, we reign in His life (Romans 5:17). Sin does not have dominion over us anymore!(Romans 6:14)

Righteousness is a gift. It does not matter what follows or does not follow. Two + Two = Four even if some people cannot add properly, or they mistake the sum of two parts, or if they are deliberately trying to cheat. It's a divine, accomplished fact that through Christ Jesus, we are made the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21)

I no longer have to fear what is going through my mind, or what may go through my mind from day to day. This life is no longer a life of trying to catch my bad thoughts before they happen. I do not have to wonder or hope that I do not have bad thoughts as I go through from day to day.

This is the everlasting righteousness that Daniel prophesied (Daniel 9:24)

My Blood Pressure is Decreasing, Because (Awareness of) His Love is Increasing

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

I am learning so much more about the Love of the Father.

For years, I used to think that bad thoughts, bad feelings would hinder my ability to understand, to receive God's love for me.

I actually believed that God's presence, His loving caress, depended on how I was feeling and what I was thinking.

Can you imagine going through life thinking that how you feel, what you think, is going to affect your standing before God? The torture, the trauma that it created it was just beyond comprehension.

The tension, the trauma, the terror was so great.

I am finally understanding how real, how present, how prevalent God's love is for me. It's really exciting.

I can lose my temper, I can have wayward thoughts and feelings, and yet God's love is still there, still present, still refreshing and rolling over me.

For decades, I was stressed out internally, constantly playing catch-up with my feelings, trying to keep a lid on sexual temptations, lust, anger, fear, etc.

Fears was particularly damaging, because I feared that because I felt fear, that would make God angry and He would not answer my prayers.

This verse started to make so much more sense:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." (1 John 4:18)

God loves me and cares for me not because of anything that I have done or will do, but because of everything that Jesus has done! The Angel of Death passed over the houses of the Israelites with blood on their doorposts, regardless of how the family members may have felt. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, not our belief in the blood.

Now, we do need to believe in His gift of salvation. We are saved by grace through faith. It's not a work that we have done, and it's not some universal salvation. A gift has to be received, after all!

At any rate, the stresses, the pressures, the upsets, uptight sentiments which were so prevalent in my body caused my blood presure to go up! It's incredible! This kind of thinking and feeling was so common in my day-to-day life, that I hardly noticed it.

After suffering a stroke, after giving up all the diet soda, and after giving up much of the fast-food, I did notice that my blood pressure was going down considerably. I got off the blood pressure medication at one time, and then my blood pressure shot up again. It was really strange how this kept happening.

Since then, I have begun to realize that there were a number of stressors that had been working within me automatically. I was constantly looking at myself, trying to catch myself so that I was not fearful, angry, or falling into bad thoughts and feelings.

Now that I recognize that His love is completely independent of my actions, i.e. I don't earn it, I can let feelings, thoughts, bad ideas come and go. They have no chokehold on me, they no longer serve as a hateful stronghold over me, because I know that the love of God has taken hold of me.

Faith Has Nothing to Do with Feelings, Even Bad Feelings

This has been one incredible journey for me.

All these years, I was so obsessed with my thoughts and feelings. I was convinced that what I was thinking, what I was feeling, was going to frustrate God's work, God's Word, God's will working in and through me.

When I think about the passage in Philippians, however, I start to realize how mistaken, how misplaced my views really are:

"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)

God's work and will is ongoing in me. It does not depend on me, including what I am thinking or feeling.

God is at work! He is in love with me, and He lives in me!

This was so hard for me to grasp, since for the longest time I was so caught up, preoccupied with whatever I was thinking or feeling.

It has taken me a long, long time to recognize that unconditional love is precisely that -- unconditional. Once I understand this wonderful gift, that God's grace is able to flow in my life.

So many Christians believe that if we know that all our sins are forgiven, then what is to stop people from sinning?

Honestly, I wonder how these individuals can forget how bad sin really was for them, and how bad it has always remained!

"For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

I am not interested in death. I have known and experienced the goodness of God!

"O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him." (Psalm 34:8)

and

"Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore." (Psalm 16:11)

and

"Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" (Romans 2:4)

But let me get back to the subject of faith and feelings.

I used to think that my faith was marred if my feelings were off, were bad.

I used to think that if I was feeling or thinking the wrong things, that it would frustrate God's grace, God's presence in my life. I had not understood how present He is. For so long, I was stuck thinking that God was present or absent, His love was here and there.

How untrue all of this is!

I used to think that faith and truth were all about feelings! No!

What is faith?

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Faith is all about seeing based on what is in God's Word, not in man's senses.

He is active, present, real, not based on what we are thinking or feeling.

My goodness--even Cain heard from God, even though he murdered his own brother beforehand!

No, faith has nothing to do with our feelings. God's love and grace do not stop flowing in our lives just because of how we are feeling, for better or for worse.

Don't get me wrong: understanding how much it is worth my while to rest and receive has been quite a challenge for me. I was so convinced that I had to "conjure up" God's presence in my life depending on how I was feeling or what I was thinking.

The simple revelation has had some complex implications for me, and I thank God that He has been so patient with me!

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)

Why I Had Such Terrible Headaches

For a few years, I used to work very hard to keep bad thoughts, feelings, hurts out of my head.

I would remember from time to time that when there was a break from the pain and torment in my mind. I would suddenly have this peace in my head, in my spirit. I did not feel ravaged by negative thoughts and feelings.

I felt that that release from bad sentiments would come and go arbitrarily, so whenever that sense of peace would roll over my mind, my thoughts, my emotions, I would go on long, long walks.

I was meditating on this previous development when I was realizing more and more that it does not matter what I am thinking. God loves me and is actively caring for me in this life, regardless of how I feel.

In those previous years, I often wondered how I was able to suddenly have such peace. What did I do? What was the right thoughts or feelings that I had engaged, encountered?

I have no finally, fully realized that I rested in the fact that God was always present, available, active, loving me, caring for me, living in me. It had nothing to do with me, and it never had had anything to do with me, either!

All this time, I had been so busy policing my thoughts, because all of this time I had believed that what I was thinking, what I was feeling was affecting whether God was working or not able to work in my life.

It's just crazy, but that's really what I believed.

And all of this is a perverse result of the fact that I was so imbibed with AA ideology. That awful cult would teach me, and teaches everyone who reads and adheres to that folly, that our thoughts, our feelings can cut us off from the 'Sunlight of the Spirit'.

What utter nonsense that is!

Jesus Loves Me: That's All that Matters

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

God's love for us is inconditional. In fact, God loved us enough to send His Son for us even while we were still sinners (Romans 5:8).

God did not wait for us to get our act together, but sent Jesus so that He could reconcile us to Himself:

"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." (2 Corinthians 5:19)

Nothing can separate me from God's Love.

For the longest time, and even recently, I have realized still that I had placed conditions on God's love. If things were going well in my life, then I was assured that God was for me.

But if things were difficult, if I was going through trials, then I would waver. "Where is God in the midst of these hardships? Why am I going through all of this?"

God wants to break those doubts out of our lives. Also, He allows us to endure hardships to test and refine our faith (1 Peter 1:17).

God wants us to rest fully in Him, to labor, to make it a priority to enter His rest and receive from Him all things.

Consider what Joseph went through. God had given him two dreams, in which his brothers and even his parents would bow down to him. Yet he endured many trials before God finally accomplished all that He had dreamed, all that He had planned for Joseph.

So too God allows hardships to take place, so that we mature, we grow in grace, and receive more from Him:

"3And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 4And patience, experience; and experience, hope: 5And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Romans 5:3-5)

and

"But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing." (James 1:4)

God's love is all that matters. Whatever you have thought or be thinking, whatever you have done or may done, nothing can separate you from the love of God:

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

Whatever good or bad comes your way, know that God's love for you is there, is real, and is going nowhere!

"Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." (Hebrews 13:5)

His love is unconditional, independent of your circumstances and certainties. Jesus loves you--that's all that matters!

Nothing Can Separate Me From God's Love, Not Even My Anger

"38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

This development, this revelation has taken more time to seep in.

For years, for decades I was convinced that I had to be free of anger. I could not have bad or fearful or unpleasant feelings in me, so that God could flow freely through me. It was unbelievable, the amount of pressure, pain, tension which I had put myself through.

I really believed that my relationship with God depended on how I was feeling! This is the deepest perversion that comes out of Alcoholics Anonymous.

That awful program teaches people that they have to be free of anger. Nonsense! You can have those feelings, and it will not prevent you from knowing, feeling, and receiving God's love.

Granted, Paul does give this clear-cut counsel to the church:

"Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 27Neither give place to the devil." (Ephesians 4:26-27)

It's not sin to get angry. In fact, there is something wrong with you if you do not get angry at evil, injustice, wrongdoing in the world.

"Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;" (1 Corinthians 13:6)

and

"Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good." (Romans 12:9)

You can't really love people if you are celebrating or accommodating evil. 

At any rate, this is such a new, profound reality for me.

For the longest time, I was constantly taking responsibility for my thoughts and feelings, as though I  had to stop them, suppress them, repress them, put them out of business, so to speak, so that they would not do me any wrong.

This is absolutely crazy, the mind games which I was dragged through.

But God is Love, that is who He is, and who He is not going to change, regardless of what I am thinking or feeling.

Nothing can separate me from the love of God. Not even myself, and certainly not what I am feeling, what I am thinking. Amen to this wonderful discovery. Thank you, Jesus!

No Longer Paying Attention to the Worries and What Ifs

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

For the longest time, I would pay attention to the worries, they weirdness, and the "what ifs?" of life.

There were constant premonitions in my flesh, and dreaded outcomes would flood into my imagination.

I kept thinking that I had to respond to every "what if?" and "what about?".

This was a big challenge for me when I was facing unjust persecution in courtrooms.

At first, I could not understand why God had allowed me to be found guilty, when all I had done was sit in a city council meeting.

Then it really occured to me how important it was for me to understand the gift of righteousness, that it is a gift, and that it does not matter what happens to me in this world. Evil people are going to do evil things, but they do not have the power to slow me down.

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

There is going to be rough-riding and rough-housing in the world. This world is a fallen place filled with fallen people.

But I am risen with Christ Jesus (Colossians 3:1), and we are above every circumstance and setback in this life.

It's OK if I don't understand what is going on all the time. It's OK if I get worried or upset. It's OK if I start asking "what if" and "what about".

However, it's not my job, it's not my problem to answer those questions.

God is Love. That is established. And just as I receive His gift of righteousness apart from works, so too He loves me apart from works, efforts, thoughts, or feelings on my part.