Sinful and Yet Blameless

“It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you go in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations that the Lord your God drives them out from before you, and that He may fulfill the word which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Therefore understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.” (Deuteronomy 9:5-6 NKJV)

Is there anyone righteous in the sight of God? No one is righteous, not even one, the scripture says. It is true in the Old and the New. There is no one righteous except God alone. The people of Israel possessed the land not because of their righteousness but because of the wickedness of these nations, so that He fulfilled the word to the Abraham. The Lord God said to His people to take heed that they were not receiving the land to possess because of their righteousness, for they were a stiff-necked people. God knew the people because He made them.

Is it not the grace and mercy of God to the people who constantly complained everything? How many times de we fail to take heed to the commandments of God? The people in the wilderness are our exact picture and pattern in our Christian experience. All are a stiff-necked people. God is faithful and keeps His promises made to the obedient in the faith in Him. What we have and enjoy now like love, joy, and peace is given not because we are righteous but because God is faithful to keep His promises. In fact, God has made us righteous through the blood of Christ when we believed and obeyed the word of promise.

Therefore, we do not boast of our righteousness because there is not our righteousness. It is His righteousness we have been clothed by the grace and mercy of God. By faith, we continue take our shelter and refuge in the righteousness of Christ Jesus. We have been secured and loved in the righteousness of God through the blood of Christ. That’s the evidence and proof that God has driven out all the wickedness in us. We are still sinful but blameless in His sight because we have been cleansed and washed away by the blood of Christ.

Since we have been made alive by faith from the beginning, we continue to live by faith now and forevermore. That is the only basis of new life in Christ Jesus. Remember what we were and continue to take heed to the word of God’s promise and receive His righteousness, springing up to eternal life out of rivers of living water.