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   Holiness Day by Day
   Devotion for Tuesday , July 03, 2012
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Selection Taken From:
Holiness Day by Day: Transformational Thoughts for Your Spiritual Journey by Jerry Bridges

Free of "fluff" and steeped in Scripture, here's a rock-solid 365-day devotional that will stand the test of time. Drawn from the works of Bridges's beloved bestsellers including The Gospel for Real Life and The Discipline of Grace, it offers thoughtful daily guidance to help you meditate on God's Word and diligently seek him. 320 pages, softcover from NavPress, Copyright 2012.

THROUGH OPEN DOORS

The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight. - (PROVERBS 11:5)

Martin Luther at first thought "the righteousness of God" which Paul mentioned in Romans 3:21 was the righteousness God required of us in perfectly fulfilling His Law. Because Luther realized more and more he could not possibly measure up to that impossible demand, he grew increasingly angry with God. At one time he had exclaimed, "Love God? I hate him:"59 Eventually he came to realize that the righteousness of God was that which God provided for us. "Thereupon I felt myself reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise."60
     What then is this righteousness from God that Paul announced to us, and over which Martin Luther struggled? It's a righteousness that God both requires and provides for us. It's the righteousness that He requires because it must fully satisfy the utmost demands of His Law, both in its precepts and penalty. For although this righteousness is apart from Law as far as we're concerned, it is not apart from Law as far as God is concerned. Rather it must be a righteousness that both perfectly fulfills the righteous requirements of His Law and satisfies the demands of His justice toward those who have broken His Law.
     This righteousness from God, then, is nothing less than the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, who, through His sinless life and His death in obedience to the Father's will, perfectly fulfilled the Law of God in both its precepts and its penalty. In other words, this righteousness that God both requires and provides embraces all the work of Christ — how He perfectly obeyed God's law, satisfied God's justice, exhausted God's wrath, removed our sins from God's presence, redeemed us from God's curse, and reconciled us to our Creator.

The Gospel for Real Life



Holiness Day by Day copyright 2012 by NavPress. All rights reserved.

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