The Daily Word of Righteousness

Angioplasty

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:4)

Angioplasty is a medical procedure sometimes used to increase the flow of blood through an artery. A tiny balloon is inserted into the constricted artery and inflated.

God is totally righteous and holy. The eternal moral law is derived from God's Personality. Because God never changes the eternal moral law never changes. Sin is the transgression of the eternal moral law and results in spiritual and physical death, that is, separation from God.

God gave the Ten Commandments as an abridged, negative, covenantal form of His eternal moral law.

The personality of man is bent and twisted, given to worldliness, lust, violence, and self-seeking.

When man faces the Ten Commandments the warping of his personality is revealed but there is not the power to fix it.

The Lord Jesus Christ came to earth from Heaven. His personality is unblemished. Jesus kept the Law of Moses perfectly, thus incurring righteousness in the sight of God. Then Christ died and offered His blood such that the believer can receive by faith the righteousness that would have been his had he kept the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Law of Moses in detail.

The believer now is absolutely righteous in the sight of God but his personality remains bent and twisted.

Now the angioplasty begins. The righteous One, Jesus Christ, is born in the individual. As the person reads his Bible, prays, fellowships with the saints, the "balloon is inflated." As Christ grows the elements of the personality are straightened out and lined up until every trace of sin and rebellion has disappeared.

Now the believer is able to keep the Law of Moses, because the law of God has been written in his mind and on his heart.

But the disciple of Jesus Christ is not called to the abridged, negative, covenantal form of the eternal moral law of God but to the fullness of the eternal law itself.

How can the human being obey God perfectly? No problem. Give attendance to doing what the Apostles commanded and Christ will be formed in the personality. Then the eternal moral law of God, which is to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, will come naturally.

The great misunderstanding of our day is that Christ came to forgive men and bring them to Heaven. The truth is, Christ came to forgive men so He would have the opportunity to totally transform them.

Is faith in Jesus our ticket to Heaven? Or is faith in Jesus a means of giving us a daily contact with God that results in the creation of a new, righteous personality?

Let Christ be magnified (inflated) in you.