Getting Things Right - Part 3 | 02.02.13

When an unbeliever comes face-to-face with the Good News and finds themselves at a crossroads, it may appear to be difficult for them to cast unbelief aside and choose to believe.  But since every man has been given the measure of faith (Romans 12:3), it's not impossible to believe.  With that measure of GOD-given faith comes the responsibility of mixing it with the Word heard: it enables us to respond to what we hear by willfully engaging in the corresponding action that gets the desired results.  In the case of reconciliation, when faith is mixed with belief in the Gospel of the Good News of the Kingdom, it yields the GOD-results of imputed (or credited) righteousness.

Despite what many people have been told, our acceptance of Jesus Christ as LORD and Savior is primarily about righteousness.  Spending eternity in Heaven after one dies is merely a benefit of being declared righteous by GOD.  Unfortunately, the church has consistently erred in marketing GOD's product the wrong way; yet we wonder why we fail to see the results promised in His Word that all men would be drawn to Christ when we life Him up.  If it is GOD's intention to impute (or credit to us) His righteousness, then why deliver a pros-and-cons-based sales pitch on eternal life in Heaven versus Hell to someone who is lost?  That lost soul needs to hear that GOD wants to connect with us, to commune with us, to engage with us on a day-to-day basis.  The only way mankind can interact with GOD and live is to be clothed in His righteousness.  We must be in right standing with Him, but people will never know the importance of righteousness if all that's understand about redemption is spending eternity in Heaven.

Experiencing the ministry of reconciliation is the ultimate in getting things right; and the same paradigm for experiencing reconciliation with GOD also works to build our trust in GOD for success in daily, practical living the Kingdom way.  Through the written ("Logos") Word and the spoken ("Rhema") Word, the born again believer undergoes a sort of naturalization process as a citizen of Heaven.  As we learn about the culture of Heaven, we willfully mix our measure of faith with the Word of GOD, which we have chosen to believe, in order to see the results GOD's Word promised.  Therefore, although it's commonly said that seeing is believing; in this case, believing is indeed seeing.