Greater Is He That Is Within You Than…
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6
I desire to be right before God. Anyone who truly has that desire can be right before our Creator when we come to Him, relying on His grace and mercy to make us righteous through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, and His atoning sacrifice on the cross. When we are born again, we receive the righteousness of Christ that covers our sins. It sounds too good to be true. When folks say that phrase, they are usually indicating that something unbelievably good must not be true, probably because people are so accustomed to things they counted on not working out for them. However, God’s promises never fail. He promised that when one surrenders himself or herself to the authority of Christ, in exchange, Jesus gives the believer His very own righteousness in order to make the believer acceptable to God the Father. When we believe that on faith, we become just as if we had never sinned, justified in God’s sight.
With all that said about personal righteousness, what about our desire to live in a righteous world? How can we achieve that goal, or rather what can we do to show others that to be right before God should be the desire of everyone, but as history and present day events have shown, many, many people do not care about righteousness. They only care about what they want no matter how vile, immoral, illegal, or damaging to themselves or others that their selfish desires are. I read on line just today that a young mother was killed because she said that “all lives matter”. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:28 that those who reject God and His righteousness are given over by God to a reprobate mind, which is a mind void of the ability to judge right and wrong. You and I know that all of this destruction is wrong, but those committing these crimes don’t see it as wrong. They are doing what is right in their own eyes. Once this happens, they are left completely in Satan’s hands to be used as tools to corrupt, disrupt, dismay, and destroy whatever is godly and of God’s standard of righteousness. They have no fear of God, and since they don’t fear Him, they are devoid of wisdom. Solomon in Proverbs 1:7 tells us that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction”.
Hebrews 10:31 tells us that “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” God doesn’t play games. Sin is a very serious matter to Him. The folks referenced in the above paragraph, the ones who are given over by God to a reprobate mind, have no idea what serious trouble that awaits them perhaps in this life and certainly beyond the grave. The term “reprobate” is taken from the Greek word “adokimos” which means “rejected”. Webster’s Dictionary gives the theological definition of “reprobate” as “to be rejected and abandoned as beyond saving”. I don’t know what words are more fearful than to hear that one has gone so far out into depravity that they have forfeited any opportunity to be forgiven by God. We don’t like to think about someone whom God will not save. We have heard the saying for years that “where there is life, there is hope”, and we certainly should never stop praying for those completely controlled by Satan, but God is the final Judge and will never violate His own word.
Every since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, people have been fearful for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. It has certainly been a trying time. And then on top of that, the riots and looting began with all sorts of mayhem, including murder, taking place throughout the nation. I had to call for a repairman to come to my home to fix my wi-fi connection. I asked him if he was worried about going into people’s homes with the coronavirus pandemic going on. He replied, “I’m a God fearing man, and I don’t worry about it.” If we truly fear God, recognize Him as the sovereign God of the universe, and honor Him as Lord over all, knowing that He has all power to do whatever He sees fit, then we need not fear man. In the face of adversity, when times are difficult and hard to bear, and when it seems that the devil is winning, we must not lose hope. “Greater is He that is in you (and me), than he that is in the world” (I John 4:4).