It’s been almost 50 years ago now that I first heard about the
gift of righteousness. Recently, however, the Lord has stirred up a desire in
me to re-dig the wellsprings of miracles and supernatural power in my life. As
I was pondering this, I realized something that is revolutionizing my approach
to healing and other manifestations of God’s promises: recognizing the gift of righteousness in our lives is a vital key to a
miraculous walk with the Lord. It truly is one of the most important truths
in the Scriptures and in our everyday lives.
The simple definition of righteousness is “being right with God;”
and this is the heart cry of every serious believer—and actually the heart cry of
most unbelievers too if they were honest with themselves. Throughout mankind’s
history, God has always made a means available whereby people could be in right
standing and relationship with Him. Adam and Eve’s righteousness would have been
maintained by simply obeying the rules He gave them: to dress and keep the
garden and to not eat of the tree of
knowledge. The patriarchs of old, such as Noah and Abraham, were counted
righteous according to their faith in God and their belief in the coming
Messiah. With Moses came a new mandate to be counted righteous: to keep the law
that God gave His people (Deuteronomy 6:25). In the New Testament, a new
standard for righteousness was initiated when the Messiah paid the price for
redemption and forgiveness. The rules changed, and now it is a gift that God
gives us freely because the price was paid by the innocent and holy blood of
the Lamb.
Righteousness is
no longer an action that we take but a reality that we must believe.
The following verse of scripture alone heralds the true value of the gift of
righteousness.
For
if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who
receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life
through the One, Jesus Christ. ~Romans 5:17
This is not a gimmick or a game. It is a foundational truth that
we must believe and accept if we are to reign in life. Notice that it says that
you must receive the gift of
righteousness if you desire to reign in life. The purpose of this article is to
show you how to receive it and walk in the victory of this gift.
What is the Gift
of Righteousness?
The words used to describe this gift provide explanation enough to
realize what it is. The fact that it is a noun shows that it is a thing, and more specifically, a gift from
God. This gift shows that He accepts you and resolves all of your sin, guilt,
and unworthiness. The gift of righteousness allows you to stand before Him
totally sinless and worthy to receive His promises. In addition, it also includes
His great desire to fellowship with you. God had to abolish sin in you before
He moved the Holy Spirit into you, because He will not dwell in a contaminated
vessel. God is light and in Him is no darkness. He does not fellowship with
unrighteousness.
As we study the usages of the word righteousness throughout the
Scriptures, we discover some interesting things. The root word for
righteousness is “right.” Right? “Right” can be a noun, an adjective, an
adverb, or a verb. “Righteous” is an adjective that describes the state of
being right. “Righteousness” is an extended form of the adjective that intensifies
the substance of the noun and emphasizes the gift of being right before God. We
already saw that it was a noun, but in this instance, “righteousness” is a
concrete noun, rather than an abstract entity. However, it is more than just a
simple noun because it is in the extended form of the adjective. It holds the
same relationship as “conscious” does to “consciousness” and “faith” does to “faithfulness.”
It makes the noun have more emphasis because it is an extension of the
adjective “righteous.”
In reality, the gift of righteousness is the God-given ability to be worthy and to feel worthy enough to receive His fellowship and blessings. In
almost 50 years of ministry, I have discovered that unworthiness and
sin-consciousness are perhaps the most life-strangling and grace-denying
feelings that lurk in people’s minds and hearts. These feelings create one of
the greatest deterrents to receiving the promises of God. The gift of
righteousness abolishes sin-consciousness and instills within us a greater
belief in His grace than we could ever have without it.
Imagine walking into a reception room full of spiritually gifted,
anointed people waiting with great anticipation for the Lord to enter. But you look
down at yourself and realize that you are clothed in rags and not at all
dressed for the occasion. You feel completely unworthy to be there. As the
others in the room begin to stare at you, you sink down into total
unworthiness. But then Jesus walks up from behind, puts His arm around you, and
announces to all those in the room, “This one is with me. He is my special
guest.” That is the gift of righteousness.
Jesus accepts you and makes you righteous in His sight.
The gift of righteousness abolishes sin-consciousness
and unworthiness and allows the gifts of God’s grace and mercy to flow to you.
Doctrinal vs.
Practical
Most, if not all, scriptural truths have both legal and doctrinal
aspects to them and can be viewed from either perspective. Righteousness falls
into that category, as does justification, sanctification, wisdom, and
redemption. These treasures were both legally and doctrinally made unto us and
for us by the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ, according to 1 Corinthians 1:30.
But
of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and
righteousness and sanctification and redemption. ~1 Corinthians 1:30
It is undeniably an act of God’s grace and mercy that we have
these things. The reason for this gift is explained in the previous verse—that no flesh should glory in His presence
(1 Corinthians 1:29). The blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ alone made it
available for those who believe in Him to receive these gifts of God’s
goodness.
Yet, even though we have received these gifts through Christ’s
sacrifice, there is still a practical side to walking in all of them. To help
understand this practical side, we will look at the Greek word for “receive” in
Romans 5:17, which is lambano. This
word means to receive something and use
it. In other words, we don’t just receive it and then just let it sit idly
by without doing something useful with it.
For
if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who
receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life
through the One, Jesus Christ. ~Romans 5:17
For these gifts
to be beneficial, they must be used. Even though we
would be deemed righteous in a true spiritual court of law and are viewed that
way in heaven, we will not see the benefits of it here on earth if we do not
tap into the abundance of grace God has given us. The Scriptures hold practical
keys that can help us experience the gift of righteousness that God has given
us through Christ.
What Does the Gift of Righteousness Do?
The gift of righteousness cleanses your spirit of sin,
transgression, and iniquity, preparing the way for the Holy Spirit to live in
you. The price that was paid for this gift and for your forgiveness was the
precious, sinless blood of Jesus Christ. When He shed His innocent blood, it
was so that the gift of righteousness could be given to you. His blood was the
payment for your justification. The verb form of justification is “justified.” (We
like to remember it through the phrase, “Just as if I’d never sinned.”) Once
you have received this gift, your fellowship with God is secured and your
spirit is made righteous for all eternity.
Before Jesus shed His blood on the cross, righteousness depended
upon things that people did, such as keeping the law. Obeying God is always the
right thing to do, but in His great love for us God gave us the gift of
righteousness so that we could stand in His presence without any sense of sin,
guilt, or condemnation. This reminds me of my college days when I got into a
lot of trouble and was just plain guilty. I lied to my Mom and Dad for over a
year, and it almost drove me to a drug addiction because the guilt was so
strong in my heart. When I finally came to myself like the prodigal son, I went
to my Dad and told him the truth. He said he had known all along, but felt that
he had to wait for me to be convicted by God to be honest and repent. I will
never forget him saying, “I love you son and I always will. I forgive you for
lying to me—now let’s see what we can do to keep you out of jail.” That kind of
unconditional love prompted me to do better and motivated me to live a holy
life. This is what the gift of righteousness does for us: it demonstrates our heavenly Father’s love to such a degree that we do
not want to sin and disappoint Him.
So not only does this gift make you worthy to stand in His presence;
it also motivates us to live a holy and righteous life. When lived out
practically, the gift of righteousness will destroy the faith blockers of
condemnation and other hindrances that keep us from living the fullness of life
God wants for us.
Righteousness Makes You Worthy to Receive
God’s Promises
From the bottom of my heart, the truth that righteousness makes
you worthy to receive God’s promises is why I am writing this article. I have
been in the miracle business for a long time and ministered God’s promises to
many people. And yet, I have witnessed multiple times when God’s gift of
healing or provision is not received—simply because the recipient does not feel
worthy enough.
In reality, there are only two things you can do with a gift. You can
either take it or leave it. Our heavenly Father made us worthy to receive His
promises via His great gift of righteousness.
Once you have received it as a gift, it is yours; yet it still needs
to be applied and used, not just received and possessed. The way this is done
is by grasping and applying the worthiness you already have through His gift of
righteousness. It doesn’t matter if you are applying it so that you can have
the faith to minister to someone or if you are doing it to overcome feelings of
unworthiness. As I said before, there have been times that the Lord has provided
me with a gift of grace to give to someone, i.e., a gift of healing or a
miracle, but the person thinks that he is not good enough to receive it. The
gift of righteousness, when it is received and used properly, will destroy that
sense of unworthiness and allow the promise of God to flow freely into that
person.
One of my spiritual sons recently gave me a new pistol. Although I
had copious pistols destroyed in my house fire a couple of years ago, none were
as nice as this one. I was overjoyed to say the least. As he handed it to me, I
was overcome and did not feel worthy to receive it. He had also made a
beautiful leather holster and engraved my initials into it. As I looked at it
and then at him, tears filled my eyes and I said, “Are you sure you want to
give this to me?” He calmly replied, “I have been waiting six months to give
this to you.” I now reflect upon that incident and see that what the Lord
taught me through it is worth more than the pistol itself. It was a gift from
my spiritual son’s heart and I learned to overcome my feelings of unworthiness
and receive it with gratitude.
This is so similar to receiving God’s promises. Not only did He
make His many promises available by His grace but He also gave us the gift of
righteousness so that we could receive them. He prepared His promises for you a
long time ago, but only as you recognize that you are worthy can you now receive
them.
Righteous by Faith
“Faith” is the noun form of the verb “believe.” It is also a
substantive noun, meaning it is not an abstract concept but an actual commodity.
The Bible is quite clear that our righteousness now comes from faith, or
believing. Your faith in what Christ did for you puts that gift of
righteousness in you. And faith (or believing) is how it is used and applied.
And
be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but
that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by
faith. ~Philippians 3:9
In reality, you are as righteous as God because you received His
gift. Yet, how righteous do you believe you are? Doctrinally, you are as
righteous as God; but practically, you are as righteous as you believe you are.
Do you believe
that God has given you the gift of righteousness? To really believe it, you must
magnify God’s goodness and gift over your feelings of unworthiness.
I was recently ministering to a very close friend whose hand was
swollen from an injury. As I held his hand in mine, I felt the gift of healing
in my own hands—yet it was not moving into his hand. I stopped mid-sentence, because
I knew if the faith blocker was not removed, the healing would not manifest. I
looked at him and said, “You know that God has forgiven your sins and that by
the gift of righteousness you are worthy to receive this.” He exhaled a big
breath and responded softly, “The reason my hand is hurt is because I got mad
and hit a wall.” He continued, “I know that I will not be healed if I don’t
receive God’s forgiveness and forgive myself.” I reminded him of the gift of
righteousness, and as he gave up his guilt and believed he was righteous by grace and not by his works, the
healing flowed into his hand and we both witnessed the swelling diminish
immediately in front of our eyes.
This is where the
application of the gift of righteousness is vital—it enables you to forgive
yourself. When Jesus healed the man of lameness after he
was let down through the hole in the roof (Mark 2:1–12), He said, “Which is
easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise,
take up your bed and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of Man has power
on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, arise, take
up your bed, and go your way to your house.”
The reason the man had the infirmity is because of sin and sin-consciousness.
When Jesus pronounced the forgiveness of sin, the man believed it, got up, took
up his bed, and walked out of the room. Jesus helped him by forgiving his sins.
Now we can do the same thing by receiving the gift of righteousness through
faith, thus recognizing the forgiveness of our sins. And we can help others do
the same so that they recognize that their sins are forgiven, which then
removes the faith blockers so that they also can receive God’s other promises.
Conclusion
We have been given the gift of righteousness by our faith in Jesus
Christ. Now believe it! You will never
be any more righteous than you are right now. Since our Christian walk began
by grace, why should we think it is any different now? Receive the gift of
righteousness and recognize your worthiness. The gift of righteousness removes
the faith blockers of sin-consciousness and unworthiness and allows the
promises of God to come to you.
Now
the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. ~James
3:18
Once the gift of righteousness is given to you, continuing to walk
in that right standing with God and His Word will produce a peace in you that
is beyond description. His peace will permeate your whole being, making you a
walking billboard of His quiet acquiescence everywhere you go.
This is receiving the gift of righteousness “into usage” so that
its fruit is evidenced in you.
Do you believe you are righteous? You are righteous by God’s grace and His gift of righteousness. Do not
allow sin or any feeling of unworthiness stand in the way of receiving His
promises.
For
if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who
receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life
through the One, Jesus Christ. ~Romans 5:17
Those of us who receive the abundance of grace and the gift of
righteousness shall reign in life by
Jesus Christ. Believe it and walk in it!
©2019 Dale M. Sides
