What is righteousness and how do you put it on? You put it on the same way you put on truth and any other piece of armour that the Lord talks about. Remember, your armour is put on in your mind not your physical body.

The only way to protect your heart is to know that you are righteous. To be righteous is to be DECLARED BY GOD to be holy and without sin. To put on righteousness as a breastplate to protect your heart means considering The TRUTH that you are righteous. Above all else the Lord encourages you to guard your heart, or the most central and secret place within you, for out of it flow the issues or forces of life. It is this force, that is found in Christ Jesus, that you are wanting to tap into.

To connect with the Lord in the secret place happens when you establish yourself in the knowledge that He HAS already made and declared you to be righteous and holy. This is a mental challenge as most of us tend to see and judge ourselves according to our own faults and failures or the opinions and philosophies of this world instead of The TRUTH that is in Jesus. Putting on righteousness is to shift your thoughts into submission to what He has said and declared about you. This requires faith, which is to believe what He has said and not what you have said.

Remember that this is part of your armour. It means you will come under attack by the ACCUSER, or the enemy of your SOUL. There is no way Satan wants you to know that you are righteous and holy through Christ Jesus, because this means certain defeat to him. Neither will religion or the world agree with you. However, it is the TRUTH and you decide whether to follow Jesus or to follow the world.

How can you declare or think about yourself as righteous or holy or without fault or criticism or blame before God when you know you make mistakes and commit sin? BECAUSE OF THE BLOOD THAT JESUS SHED FOR YOU ON THE CROSS! Oh happy day, the day that Jesus washed our sins away! 😊

Righteousness requires you to think about the cross and all that happened there. It was far more than just a man called Jesus being crucified. There were eternal events being established. A war was being fought and won. The war was primarily in the SOUL of the Lord and began before He was crucified. Remember the garden where He was under so much stress that He sweat drops of blood. Here He was under so much agony and sorrow that He asked the Father if it were possible to have this cup – the events of the next few days – to pass from Him. Consider this, many people had at that time been crucified. Make no mistake, nobody wants to be crucified, but they did not sweat blood. Why was Jesus sweating blood? Because His crucifixion was far more than just physical. His was being fought in His spirit, His soul, and His body.

Scripture also says that for the JOY set before Him He endured the cross. Imagine what kind of conflict there was inside His heart and mind. He is facing the most grueling physical death, anguish of soul and joy of spirit. The world wants to kill Him, and God wants to glorify Him. But, for Him to deliver you and I from death He would have to taste – experience – death FOR us. He did, He conquered death, hell and the grave. Have you ever thought about how He did that, what it was like, what He felt, etc.? To consider these things will help you understand the great price that He paid to MAKE YOU RIGHTEOUS or HOLY in GOD’S SIGHT.

To worship and honour and love the Lord means to acknowledge and accept all that He has done and accomplished as TRUE. Righteousness is an ETERNAL TRUTH and forever settled in heaven. It is the Father’s eternal decree concerning you. It is because of this ETERNAL TRUTH and ETERNAL DECREE that you can now STAND before the accuser and use this eternal decree as part of your defense against him. Putting on righteousness means shifting your thoughts into eternity, outside of time and space, into Him, where you are and always will be perfectly righteous and holy.

This is a big subject and far too much for me to deal with now, but in short, putting on righteousness is to see yourself as you are IN HIM which is to see yourself AS HE IS. He is perfect before God, you are perfect before God. He is holy before God, you are holy before God. He is without sin before God, you are without sin before God. None of this has anything to do with you, it has everything to do with Him and what He has done.

Consider who you belong to and all He has done for you. These thoughts will connect you with eternity – the heavenly kingdom of God that IS WITHIN you.

May you have an awesome weekend and I hope you will take time to explore the wonderful world of righteousness within you.