IMMANUEL ~ The Gift of WITH - Advent Day 3

RIGHTEOUSNESS

What do you do when you feel defeated? It’s so easy to get stuck in that endless loop of try - fail- try harder. Desperately trying to fix, overcome, or improve. This so quickly becomes an endless loop of frustration, shame, and even hopelessness. Maybe the hustle and bustle of the season is a welcome distraction, but what is hanging around in the back of your mind telling you 're a failure? 

Jesus is the man of righteousness - the perfect one. The great news is, when you get Jesus you get all of Him. Did you know that righteousness is part of that deal? God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). What does that even mean to have His righteousness? Perhaps it is where we can stop measuring ourselves by our failure/success rate and learn to rest in who we ARE. Receiving the reality that we have His righteousness can change everything - rewiring our motivations and redefining our choices. If you feel stuck in the cycle of try, fail, try harder, maybe it's time to turn your focus onto what He has given to you. 

Take a moment and notice where you are gauging yourself by how you measure up, take that burden to the cross and ponder what it means to receive Jesus’ righteousness. It is a gift, what keeps you from just receiving it? What keeps you stuck in the try-fail-try harder loop? Imagine what just receiving it would mean for you, what would that do to your sense of defeat? 

“For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:17