The Process

Righteousness consists of God leading us and us following. The problem is that we have no capacity within ourselves to follow God. So God has a way to give us the free gift of righteousness.

God's method is "by grace through faith," and this is the process.

1. God speaks. God has already prepared our heart to receive and hear. (some caveats about hearing God's Voice)
2. When we hear,
3. God's faith comes.
4. God's faith gives us access into God's grace (free gift).
5. We receive that grace and submit to it. Actually, God has, by this point, prepared our hearts to receive and submit (let go) our beings to God's free gift of righteousness (rather than setting about to establish our own righteousness.
6. God thinks His thoughts, says His words, and does His works through us.
7. When we yield to the Spirit in this way, we die to self and live to Christ. Good seed is planted in our hearts. We are changed to be more like Jesus.

All of this happens very quickly each time it happens. Each time we obey, it lifts us higher. If we let our flesh try to help or contend with God in this process, then we frustrate the grace of God.

When God speaks, your fleshly nature, which is just as evil as Satan and bound to Satan, speaks. If we listen to Satan, evil seed is planted in the garden of our hearts. The ground in our hearts becomes stoney and God's good seed begins to have trouble taking root. We walk away from Jesus. We re-crucify Christ in our hearts.

Sin

A dandelion may grow up in your lawn and you see it just ready to go to seed. At the moment you see it, it is white, and you can't do a thing about the fact that it is there. It is there because of a seed planted in the past. That is like slipping into sin. Slipping happens so fast that you cannot stop it. However, when you step across and continue to speak to yourself or others in a way that does not discern the Body of Christ, then it is as if you grabbed this dandelion full of seeds and shook it to plant all the weed seeds in your lawn. This actually moves you from holiness to worldliness. You are a little less mature afterwards. Fortunately, if you confess your sin, God is faithful and just to forgive your sin.

Wisdom

Proverbs 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

• Wisdom:moving from taking ground to holding ground and finally moving on to total victory.
• Wisdom: going from doing right things right to ever-increasing stability of mind and action, and then going on to final complete fulfillment.

• Doing right things right by the right Spirit is called righteousness in the Bible.
• Being set free from bondage and having stability and faithfulness is called holiness in the Bible.
• The final complete fulfillment is called redemption in the Bible.

Wisdom is the principal thing because it has within it righteousness, holiness, and redemption.

1 Corinthians 1:30 It is because of him (God) that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. NIV

1 Corinthians 1:30 says that you are in Christ Jesus. Whatever else it may mean to be in Christ Jesus, we know that we are in the Body of Christ, which is the real Church. Now, this Christ, both the Head and the Body, has become wisdom from God to us. That wisdom consists of righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Righteousness is the righteousness of God working through us as we yield ourselves to His righteousness. Righteousness can only be by God's Grace and through God's Faith. That is, faith gives us access into God's Grace (free gift) and Grace does the Works. Righteousness is the Gift of God and we are saved to His good works. Righteousness is in the moment as we flow in the Anointing that comes from God's throne. That is the same as the fruit of the Spirit. When we yield to the Spirit of God in this way, we die to self and live to God. His Holy Presence and the fact that we yield to Him changes us in our very nature. We become like Him. We become holy from glory to glory, from light to light, from faith to faith. This holiness is faithfulness and stability. It is change to what we are. As we walk into His holiness by His Spirit, we experience His redemption. The final enemy to be destroyed is death. The final step is the setting of mature sons of God into ruling authority; it is the redemption of our bodies. This is the manifestation of the sons of God or the apocalypse.

The Pattern

No one can do this on their own. In fact, Now, through the Church, God is doing this in every person who is willing. Taking part in these things will bring great unity in the Church--to the point that the Body of Christ will be so joined to the Head, Jesus, and so joined to each other that the Body and Head will move together as one totally complete and fulfilled man. The Church, as defined in Scripture, is God's pattern.

There are some basic weapons of warfare that God has put into the Church to win this battle:

• Being born again
• Being baptized in water
• Being baptized in the Holy Spirit
• There is strength in the Holy Communion
• Being set into your ministry and having gifts of the Spirit imparted to you by the laying on of hands and prophesy of the presbytery

You may still struggle against the sins of the past. There may be habits and habitual thoughts that trigger unexpectedly. So what can you do?

• Pray fervently for a softer, more receptive heart toward God and for wisdom from God.
• Pray that God remove your secret faults, the ones that are so buried in stony layers of lies that you think they are not faults.
• Pray that the Holy Spirit come as fire and burn out the sinful nature with all its deception, drive, and desire.
• Pray the Holy Spirit come as water flowing from the Throne to wash and create a clean heart in you.
• You may have to confess your sin to a trusted brother or sister who will pray with you.

• When God does lead you, don't contend with Him (Romans 2:8),. When God speaks to you, whether by a feeling or word in your conscience, a word from a brother or sister in Christ, the Bible, or any other source, stop and listen. Take it to heart. Ask God what you should do. Stay in His presence. Don't try to do it in your own strength. You must stay in the anointing.

Warnings

• Magazines, books, internet sites, TV shows, movies, music can all carry the wrong spirit. They can be full of lies. Some of these ungodly influences are even available in Christian book stores, though Christ submit themselves to some really evil messages from Satan. Even the news programs and science programs are usually filled with many lies told using the deception of assumptive language. Ungodly sources can justify anger and violence-this is especially true of movies.
• On the internet, there are websites that give ungodly fashion advice, ungodly life advice, ungodly news, and that help you idolize ungodly people. Classes in the university generally contain some of the popular ungodly lies like the lies of evolution, age of the universe, feminism, socialism, and fears of environmental extremism. Classes on theology or the Bible or comparative religion are particularly dangerous to your soul.
• Ungodly counsel can make light of what the Bible says about marriage and what is reserved for marriage and blessed in marriage. They can lie about the consequences for those who take these blessings and pervert them. They can falsely imply that our hope for righteousness and true holiness in Christ is in vain. They can present counterfeit alternatives to the true Gospel, the true Christ, the true Church, the true Hope, the true faith, and true agape Love.
• Regarding any of these lying sources, the carnal mind may say, "These things have no effect on me. I can read them, listen to them, or look at them and nothing bad happens. These ungodly things are still planting seeds into the soul of anyone who sits in their presence. The human imagination creates many strongholds for the enemy. Many of the ungodly influences take away the need to even strain your imagination. Can a person set burning coals of fire on his or her lap and not be burned? Besides this, is the Holy Spirit really leading you to spend your time this way? Whatever is not of faith is sin.
• One of the biggest lies is the lie of human goodness. In a movie of a novel, it may go like this as a general story line. There was a good person. This person ran into a problem. This person handled the problem in a good way, proving that this person was good. There is no mention of the Holy Spirit working through the person to do the good. Sometimes, the story claims to be true or historical, but it is still a lie. There is not a just person on the earth who does good and does not sin. All our righteousness is filth. There is none good but God. God can do His good work through us, but we must submit to Him.

Testing

Igneous rocks are formed under heat. God will often apply heat to temper us and develop our faith. When we resist the Holy Spirit fire and contend with God (Romans 2:8), we become hardened in our hearts. This becomes a stone in our garden and it remains with the other stones that are there keeping God's gospel from taking root and bearing fruit.
Sedimentary rocks are formed under compression when the water is squeezed out. In the same way, God will speak to us about the way that we are letting the ungodly counselors, ungodly music, and ungodly stories trample down and compress the ground of our garden. If we contend with God, if we argue with Him about it, then we find that stones are formed by squeezing out the water of the Holy Spirit from that already hardened ground along the pathway. When we defend the ungodly philosophies, say it doesn't matter, pretend that God doesn't see, live a double life, we are contending with God.

Metamorphic rocks are formed by applying temperature or pressure to existing rocks. God will often apply heat to drive sin from us. Sometime, by the water of the Holy Spirit, God will wash out the rocks. When we contend with God (Romans 2:8), we become even more hardened. If we love sin instead of loving God, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus must be our Lord, and we cannot fool Him. He judges the heart and nothing defiled can enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Each lie becomes hardened and lies build on lies just as stones lay on top of one another and seem to lock together. They form a stronghold. Your soul garden can become so stony that you only have enough clay to hold your stones together. No good plant can grow there. Only the toughest and most virulent weeds can grow.
The lies in us can indeed become strongholds of demons.=

How to be born again

Topic: By Grace Through Faith

1 Corinthians 15:10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. God drops faith into our hearts. We receive it or not. God lets us know His will. We obey or not. There are no gray...

1 John 3:7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. What is the implication? Someone is going to try to deceive you. Has anyone told you that righteousness doesn\'t affect what you do? That would be deceptive. Whoever does righteousness is righteous. In no way does this mean that you earn your salvation. You do not earn your salvation. Salvation is...

Doing right things right by the right Spirit--this is what the Bible calls righteousness. Earthly wisdom sends you to the wrong source, but God\'s wisdom contains within it the necessary righteousness. Righteousness is by grace through faith. Here is how it works: God speaks His hope. We hear. We receive God\'s word and believe Him. Faith comes by hearing the word (utterance) of God. Faith gives us access to grace, that...

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The only way to have more love is to have a closer relationship with God who is love. The only way to have more faith is to walk more closely with God and to listen to Him, obey Him, when He speaks. FREE on-line BOOK (a classic): The Real Faith, by Charles S. Price FREE on-line BOOK (a classic): The Meaning Of Faith, by Charles S. Price When God speaks, He doesn\'t...

God speaks and a spiritual substance of things hoped for comes, to which we can respond by yielding, making faith alive, or resisting, making faith dead. When we yield, the power of grace is able to do the works of God in us. Anything that doesn\'t happen in this way falls short of the glory of God. Righteousness is by grace through faith. (some caveats about hearing God\'s Voice) FREE on-line BOOK...

Love; so much has been written about it.  Think of all the love songs and also the songs that have been written to tell us about love.  All we need is love.  What the world needs now is love, sweet love.  And the many romance novels seem to sell very well, plus the many books written to teach us about love.  Here are two facts about love.  God is Love.  Love...

Some people think that they can make up anything they like and then call it faith--then they think that God has to honor that.  There is a saying about this: \"If you can conceive it and believe it, you can achieve it.\"  This is a lie.  Jesus is the author and finisher of any real faith, and faith comes by hearing, but only one type of hearing, hearing the word,...

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Love is the fulfillment of the law, Romans 13:8-10.  Sin is breaking the law, 1  John 3:4.  Love is what righteousness is and has many facets as 1  Corinthians 13 says.  God is love.  We cannot have righteousness  without having God.  We cannot have love without having God.  In fact,  righteousness is a free gift from God, Romans 5:17.  Righteousness is by grace through faith.  The children of Israel made ...

We know only what God has told us about the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of life, and the Garden of Eden. I don\'t think that we have any revelation on what happened to the tree itself. We do know that, ever since partaking of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, mankind has been plagued with an over-active sense of what is right and...

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Definition of Grace:   Grace, which is accessed only by faith, is the power of God by which He does righteousness through anyone who will yield to Him. Grace is perhaps one of the most misunderstood words, along with faith, in the entire Bible. And it is one of the most important. Some people define grace as forgiveness. Some people define grace as good manners. Some people define grace as mercy. None...

In Romans, we see an ongoing process beginning with being born again and continuing with a moment-by-moment relationship of God leading and faith coming (10:17), grace flowing (5:2), and God working (5:16-21 & 6:3).  That is the sequence of the relationship with Christ.  Our part is to yield to Him, not in theory but in reality.   FREE on-line BOOK (a classic): The Real Faith, by Charles S. Price FREE on-line...

Topic: Righteousness by Grace through Faith

You can know the will of God by being led by the Spirit. Then, the next question is this: \"How can I know it is the Spirit and not myself?\" Here are ten things you need to know about being led: 1. You must seek God on purpose Hebrews 11:6 God is and He is a rewarder--we will find Him if we seek Him. Matt 7:8 All who seek find Luke 11:9-13 God will give...

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We may have never realized just how very strait (constricted) (Luke 13:24) and narrow (Matthew 7:14) that way of righteousness is. It is very narrow and constricted. If God didn\'t tell us to think it, say it or do it, then it is sin. It is missing the mark. If God did tell us to do it and we get our flesh involved at all, to the extent that we...

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Down to earth righteousness is real and it has to do with the will of the person through whom the righteousness is done..  It is righteousness the flows from the Holy Spirit.  It is the flow of God\'s Own Love through the follower of Christ.  It is the fruit of the Spirit.  God speaks, leads.  The Christ follower hears and directs his or her will to follow.  God\'s Own Faith...

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Righteousness is by grace through faith. Why do Christians struggle so to be righteous when righteousness is the free gift of God. Salvation is by grace through faith. Salvation is more than being born again and escaping from the punishment for sin. Salvation is forgiveness and it is also being set free from slavery to sin and the sinful nature. Here\'s how it works: God speaks His vision of hope to us....

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Luke 13:24 Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say to you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.   Real righteousness is by grace through faith.  ...

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1 Peter 1:22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit to unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: You see that they have purified their souls (soul, mind, heart, life are all the same Greek word.)  This purification is holiness.  There is a measure of holiness in those who follow Jesus.  It is accomplished by obeying...

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