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Justified By The Righteousness Of Christ

By Pastor Lazarus Mouka
12 April 2015   |   6:15 am
BELOVED, this year’s commemoration of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has come and gone, but the significant of it must remain an indelible mark in our consciousness. It is not something we can wish away or brush aside; rather it is something that should provoke us to seek Him, get closer to Him and understand the power of His resurrection, for by it we are justified.
IBRU Pastor Lazarus Copy

Pastor Lazarus Mouka

BELOVED, this year’s commemoration of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ has come and gone, but the significant of it must remain an indelible mark in our consciousness. It is not something we can wish away or brush aside; rather it is something that should provoke us to seek Him, get closer to Him and understand the power of His resurrection, for by it we are justified.

Phil. 3: 8-10 says, “Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, 9 And be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 10 That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death”.

Paul the Apostle said that he did not depend upon anything he could call his own, neither spiritual privileges nor natural accomplishments, for the righteousness, which secured him – a guilty sinner from the dint of God’s wrath, is the righteousness of Christ. The resurrection demonstrated Christ Jesus to be the Son of God with power. The Apostle had the belief and expectation that the mighty power that worked in Christ’s resurrection would work in his life and transform him from spiritual death to a new life. And as he believed, so he received the transformation from death to life by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, in order to become justified by the righteousness of Christ, all Christians are expected to emulate this great apostle. Rom. 6: 3-4 says, “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into His death? 4 Therefore, we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life”. To show we are justified by His righteousness, we should arise out of the grave of sin as Christ has risen, and walk in newness of live. Christ’s resurrection is a powerful motive that put us under strong obligation to arise from sin, and walk in newness of life. The resurrection is both a pattern and a pledge of our resurrection, a pattern after which we are to conform in our rising from the grave of sin.

Brethren, there are many that claim to be Christians because they go to church or have their own churches. They may even believe they are righteous because they attend Church services or are doing one good work or another in the Church. They may also assume to have been instilled with some moral discipline based on self-righteousness, but they are without Christ and do not appreciate the work of grace cum work of resurrection by which we claim justification. The fact is that one cannot be a Christian without acknowledging and appreciating the work. The belief in the existence of God does not automatically make one a Christian; rather it is a step to becoming a Christian. Christianity transcends beyond a mere belief of the existence of God.

It is all about preaching and practising what you belief – Jesus Christ the Son of God. It is preaching the birth, death, resurrection and triumphant ascension to heaven of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is practising His doctrine of holiness and righteousness. It is going through a transformation experience that brings a total change of attitude. Anything short of this is religion and such righteousness based on religion is not justified. Beloved, the import of the importance of Easter is nothing but to assert that God’s way of justification of a guilty sinner is not by works, done by him, but by faith in the Mediator.

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