WHAT IS RIGHTEOUSNESS?
What is righteousness? If you don’t have the sound understanding this topic, you will be confused and deceived. Because you need to know that those who are preaching this false righteousness are agents of devil in suites. Because Satan knows if he should come out physically to preach heresy to you, you will be scared, you will run away from him so he chooses men and women with nice looking church auditoriums and load them with different false teaching and doctrines to lead as many people to hell fire.
The meaning of righteousness is simply good works. Righteousness by the word of God is good works. So let me explain to you:
Salvation through Jesus Christ does not come by our good works, meaning we are not saved because we are good, we have all sinned and come short of God’s glory. We are born bad and bred bad. Before God, no one is good. The Bible says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8.
I want you to take note of that Bible statement, “while we were still sinners” Two things you need to take note here: 1, we were sinners, bad people when Jesus came to save us” Number two, after Jesus saves you from bad life, that is, from sins, you don’t continue sin again, you don’t remain a sinner. That was the reason the Bible says, “while we were still sinners” so it is a past tense, we were sinners before we met Jesus, and we don’t remain sinners, we don’t remain in bad works, ungodly works after we are saved in Christ.
For you to be free from false teaching on righteousness, for you to have sound understanding of the word of God of righteousness, you need to take note of these 2 things:
1, BY WHICH WE ARE SAVED
We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus, we are not saved by our own works of righteousness or good works but we are saved by faith in Christ. The Bible says in Ephesians 2:8,9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
We are saved by grace, free gift of God and not by our own works of righteousness. This is the gospel by which we are saved!
2, FOR WHICH WE ARE SAVED
You know the problem of many Christians of today? They only know by which means they were saved, they don’t know more than that. And that is half knowledge, and you need to know that half truth or half knowledge leads to greater heresy. If you know by which means you were saved but you don’t know for which purpose you were saved, you are so biblically ignorant. The prosperity preachers, the modern gospel preachers are so biblically ignorant that they only know “by which” but they don’t know “for which”.
We are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus, but for what? For which purpose were we saved? If you don’t know the purpose of a thing, you will abuse the thing. Are we saved to continue in sins? Are we saved to continue in lawlessness and sinfulness, is that the purpose of our salvation?
The Bible says in Ephesians 2:8,9 that we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus but God does not leave us in darkness on the purpose of our salvation, but in verse 10, the Bible says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Can you see here now, “created in Christ Jesus for good works” meaning being born again, saved in Christ Jesus for good works. Good works means righteousness.
The purpose for which we were saved is for good works, is for righteousness, to live in righteousness and holiness to the glory of God. So when you give your life to Jesus, when you become born again, you are born again for good works, for righteousness and holiness.
Now, let me explain better, your good works before your salvation in Christ, before you become born again is your own work of self-righteousness, it cannot save you. But your good work after salvation is the fruits of the Spirit. After you are saved in Christ, the Bible says you must work out that salvation with trembling and fear.
We are saved for works of righteousness in Christ by His grace and anyone who claims to be saved and continue in unrighteousness is fake. It is not possible for you to be genuinely saved without practicing righteousness in God. It is not about claiming righteousness but practicing it. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not righteous and no unrighteous will enter heaven. The Bible says, “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” 1 John 3:7,8.
Those preachers are churches that teach that when you saved, you are covered by Jesus’ righteousness and your righteous living does not matter are misguided end time anti-Christ agents. Let no one deceive you with permissive teachings, we are not saved by our works of righteousness but not for unrighteous living. When you are genuinely saved, you start to live righteous life by God’s grace. You must be righteous just as He is righteous, just by His grace. Heaven is meant for the righteous not unrighteous people.
“Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” Romans 6:12-14.
If you claim to have been saved, but you are still living in sins, you need to rededicate your life to Jesus afresh and receive the grace, the supernatural empowerment to go and sin more. It is possible in Jesus and that is the reason He died for you, to set you free from sin and give you the power to live a holy and righteous life.
God bless you.
Gideon Akande, the Evangelist
RTEM: www.rtemoutreach.org