Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place,
Ephesians 6v14
This is the 2nd in the Check Your Armour series, where we’ll explore how we can use the “breatplate of righteousness”, in a practical (and musical) way.
So, what does a breastplate do? A breastplate covers your chest and protects your vital organs, like your heart and lungs. It is held in position and supported by a large belt (the Truth).
So, are you Righteous?
No!
Clearly we are not righteous or we wouldn’t need saving. When we try to do good entirely by ourselves we are self righteous, and it simply isn’t enough. At the end of the book of Job, God shows Job how small his vision and understanding really are. Job had no notion of how the universe works, or how the ripples of any action he took would reverberate around the world, and how that would affect others.
Unlike Job, we do know a little about how the world works. We can see how society maybe affected by certain laws, or idealogies. We can see how certain actions affect our economy. We can use science, and maths, and medicine and much other knowledge to make our world a better place to live in. We have ALL this knowledge, and history to look back on, yet we STILL have wars, people trapped in poverty, deaths from treatable diseases and many other broken things in modern life.
We all know that there is something wrong with the human heart, but throughout human history, different forms of government and political theorising, no one has ever been able to fix this, apart from God. Your heart can only be changed by the Holy Spirit through the grace of God. This is not something you do yourself, so how does it work?
First of all, we are justified through the death of Jesus/Yeshua on the cross. He lived a perfect life, and make no mistake, he didn’t have to go to the cross. God himself saved the whole of Jerusalem from the Assyrian King Sennacherib, and could have done the same for His Son.
That night the angel of the LORD went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp.
2 Kings 19v35
Jesus/Yeshua CHOSE to stay in the situation we put him in. He still CHOSE, through great pain, to swap his own perfect life, and his torturous death, for ours. With our sinful nature, we can never reach perfection and so there would be no hope of escaping perfect justice, nor resting in God’s perfect presence. In his great love, God had to reach down to our level and take it all upon himself. Perfect justice has now been served, and we are counted as justified, if we accept His generosity, turn away from sin and believe in Him.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.
1 Peter 3v18
The debt of sin that comes with an imperfect life has been paid for, so if we choose to accept God, the Righteousness of Yeshua/Jesus covers us and we can now live in God’s perfect presence. Our sins no longer count and cannot be used against us.
So, are we are free from sin? I mean, I know I still sometimes sin, so…??
Yes!
God is Faithful and Just.
Meaning, he will ALWAYS be trustworthy – All we have to do is truly repent of our sin and we WILL be forgiven, and His Righteousness WILL cover us.
What if I sin again though?
Again, if you truly repent, he is faithful, ALWAYS – During the ongoing process of life, we continue to sin, but our faith grows and we learn to trust God more and more. Overtime, we become more aware of our sin, and we do it less and less. This is called sanctification and it is an ongoing process.
What if I can’t stop committing certain sins?
Sinning can be like giving up smoking/drinking/drugs. You might keep falling off the wagon again and again. Each time, simply pick yourself up, repent, ask for forgiveness and climb back on that wagon. God is perfectly faithful, so he will forgive you, each and every time you truly mean it. Yeshua/Jesus covered ALL sin with His Righteousness, and the Holy Spirit he sent, is here to help us, strengthen us, and set us free from that sin. Remember, the Spirit will continue the work of sanctification in you, so pray to your Father in heaven, and ask for help in the Spirit. You will find that you will start to win the battle against sin more and more as you grow in the Spirit and Knowledge of Him, just keep getting back on that wagon.
So, each time you repent, you are truly Righteous in Him, so hang on to that righteousness and it will protect your heart.
A good practice for this, is to begin each day by praying and repenting of sin before you get up. Note, that the Lord’s prayer includes this. We also practice this at the studio. Before any session, we will repent and pray to get ourselves right with God before doing any work. You can do this before you write a song, play a gig, record, or whatever you do. After all, like Job, we never know how or who our actions/words/songs are going to affect.
God Bless you in all that you do.
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