Jehovah Tsidkenu.
Aren't you glad that God doesn't love some future version of you? That He didn't choose you thinking "I'll pick her to be my child, clean her up so she doesn't sin as much, then I'll show her my unconditional love." Because that's probably what I would do if I were God. Or I would tell mankind "you're not good enough right now, but come see me in a few years when you have cleaned up your act a bit and then we'll talk."
I think that some people have that mindset of God. I'll admit, I did for a really long time. I thought that I had to follow a checklist of things: don't cuss, don't drink, and don't have sex. Do all of these things and you can earn God's love! I was really religious. I thought that God was this giant policeman in the sky waiting for me to screw up so he could unleash his wrath on me.
There is a huge difference between religion and Christianity. With religion, you must obey in order to gain Christ's acceptance. But Christianity is the opposite: we are already accepted and that's why we obey. It's His kindness that leads us to repentance. It was while we were yet sinners that Christ does for us. We can't do enough good to make ourselves righteous enough to come before God. The bible says that our righteous acts are like filthy rags. So when we try and please God by being like "look at all the good things that I'm doing!" enough God's like "that's disgusting." But there is one kind of righteousness that the Lord accepts: The righteousness of Jesus.
My favorite name for the Lord is Jehovah Tsidkenu. It literally means The Lord is our Righteousness. This is so comforting because even though NO ONE can stand before the father claiming to be spotless and pure, Jesus can. The Lord accepts Christ's righteousness as if it were ours. On our own, we could never be worthy to approach God and ask for anything but because of what Jesus did, we can boldly approach his throne of grace.
Jesus-- how sweet the sound, the sound of grace.
The beauty of the cross isn't that Christ came to die for good people. It's that we were filthy and He died for us anyways.
I think that some people have that mindset of God. I'll admit, I did for a really long time. I thought that I had to follow a checklist of things: don't cuss, don't drink, and don't have sex. Do all of these things and you can earn God's love! I was really religious. I thought that God was this giant policeman in the sky waiting for me to screw up so he could unleash his wrath on me.
There is a huge difference between religion and Christianity. With religion, you must obey in order to gain Christ's acceptance. But Christianity is the opposite: we are already accepted and that's why we obey. It's His kindness that leads us to repentance. It was while we were yet sinners that Christ does for us. We can't do enough good to make ourselves righteous enough to come before God. The bible says that our righteous acts are like filthy rags. So when we try and please God by being like "look at all the good things that I'm doing!" enough God's like "that's disgusting." But there is one kind of righteousness that the Lord accepts: The righteousness of Jesus.
It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. - 1 Cor 1:30
My favorite name for the Lord is Jehovah Tsidkenu. It literally means The Lord is our Righteousness. This is so comforting because even though NO ONE can stand before the father claiming to be spotless and pure, Jesus can. The Lord accepts Christ's righteousness as if it were ours. On our own, we could never be worthy to approach God and ask for anything but because of what Jesus did, we can boldly approach his throne of grace.
Jesus-- how sweet the sound, the sound of grace.
The beauty of the cross isn't that Christ came to die for good people. It's that we were filthy and He died for us anyways.
I love this Eva! I feel like sometimes it takes us so long to realize this... like especially people who grew up in church. We hear the gospel so often that a lot of the time people take it for granted and never take one deep look at Jesus! Lovely blogging girl! ;)
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