You Are Righteous Even On Bad Days

There is a voice that shows up on the days you handled badly. Who do you think you are. You call yourself a Christian and you have not opened your Bible all week. It knows exactly where to press.

What you say back to it matters more than you think. If the answer is you are right, I blew it, I do not deserve anything from God today, then somewhere in you there is a scoreboard, and your standing with God moves up and down with your week.

2 Corinthians 5:21 says, "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." Made. Past tense, already done, and not by you. The righteousness has your name on it but it has His track record behind it.

Isaiah 54:14 says, "In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear." Notice what the fear is tied to. Not to how well you are performing. To whether you know where you are standing.

So the honest answer to that voice is yes, I messed up this morning, and I am still righteous, because that was never mine to earn. That is not letting yourself off. People who know they are loved without conditions end up changing more, not less, because the pressure to perform is gone and the Holy Spirit finally has room to work. Right believing is what produces right living, and it only runs in that order.

You are not building a case for God to accept you. He closed that case at the cross and He has not reopened it since.