“The LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”  – Deut 4:24

“Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around.  His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.  The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth.” – Psalm 97:2-5

“The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty.  His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.  He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers.  The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it.  Who can stand before his indignation?  Who can endure the heat of his anger?  His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.”  – Nahum 1:2-6

There is nothing that God hates more than sin and you have been a sinner from the moment you were born.  In Nahum we are told that the LORD will by no means clear the guilty, and every one of you are guilty.  Every waking moment of every one of your days has only served to increase your guilty before a holy and righteous God.  His judgments are true, there is no injustice in Him, therefore all should tremble.  If all of creation is but the fringes of God’s power, imagine every ounce of God’s power being poured out in wrath against the unrighteousness of sinners… sinners like you… sinners like me, for eternity.  That is the weight of God’s glory.  If that scares you, it should, it does me.  We should all fear God, but we should not live in fear.  We have an advocate in God’s courtroom.  His name is Jesus Christ, and for those who trust Him, we have a greater hope than we could imagine. 

In Christ, we have a righteousness that is not our own.  Your righteousness is not within you, your righteousness is Christ.  It is an amazing thing to truly rest in the peace of Jesus Christ crucified.  The joy found in Him can only be understood by those who truly understand the wrath of God, the atonement of our sins by the righteous One – Christ, and the imputation (gift) of Christ’s righteousness to all who believe on Him. 

John Bunyan wrote a book in the 1600’s called “The Pilgrim’s Progress”.  It has sold more copies of any book in history except for the Bible.  In it Bunyan describes a point in time where the burdens of questioning his salvation were loosed from him:

One day as I was passing into the field . . . this sentence fell upon my
soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And . . . I saw with the eyes of
my soul Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness;
so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God
could not say of me, he [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just
before him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of
heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that
made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ
himself, “The same yesterday, today, and forever.” Heb. 13:8. Now
did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions
and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from that
time those dreadful scriptures of God [about the unforgivable sin]
left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace
and love of God


Some will hear this gospel of salvation to all who believe on Christ, and reject it outright.  Others will acknowledge it casually and move on with their lives.  But for those who believe, our faith is credited to us as righteousness and we will never be the same.  We are a new creation in Christ.  We have forgotten what lies behind, to press on to know Him more.  We have died to ourselves so that Christ might live in us.  What a salvation!  Our hunger to know this great savior and Lord that is insatiable.  There is no end to His glory to know and delight in.  This is what He offers all who follow Him.   
 
Jesus died, that we might live.  God raised Him, so that we would know the hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus.  Our salvation is not an idea, it is a fact.  We have been saved; 2000 years ago, on a cross Jesus Christ died and rose again securing salvation.  He became sin (our sin), bore the full wrath of God, and died in our place… but the grave could not hold Him!  His righteousness was greater than our sin.  God raised Him, accepting His sacrifice, and he sat down at the right hand of God.  No more sacrifices needed to be made, it was finished.  These words cannot express the glory of God in salvation, but as you read, taste and see that the Lord is good with the eyes of your heart.   
 
As you walk today, and you are tempted to recall past failures or today’s struggles, when Satan would even try to convince you that your works could separate you from the love of God, speak this truth to yourself – my righteousness is not my own, my righteousness sits at the right hand of God.  Run to Him.  Wait for Him.  Wherever you are, in His presence is where you need to be.  God loves you, and knows the horrors sin will bring.  Therefore, the grace of God through Christ Jesus does not save us from the rebuke of God when we sin, anymore than a loving father would refrain from punishing a young child when he insisted on running into traffic.  But even as we bear the consequence of sin, know that our Salvation is secure in Heaven.   His name is Jesus. 

Grace and Peace,
Adam