The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Importance of Fruit, #12

In righteousness you will be established: Tyranny will be far from you; you will have nothing to fear. Terror will be far removed; it will not come near you. If anyone does attack you, it will not be my doing; whoever attacks you will surrender to you. (Isaiah 54:14,15—NIV)

The righteousness we have hoped for and sought has now become ours. It is the fruit of abiding in Christ. It is the new nature that reflects the eternal moral law of God and is proceeding from Christ who has been formed in us during our struggle with God.

Christians look to Heaven as being their place of safety when they die. The Scriptures do not promise us safety in Heaven. Our protection from the enemy, our deliverance from tyranny and terror, come from God, who at one time had been angry with us because of our sins but now has received us to Himself for eternity.

See, it is I who created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame and forges a weapon fit for its work. And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc; (Isaiah 54:16—NIV)

When we are waiting on the Lord, trusting in Him to bring His promises to pass in our life, we have no reason to fear. All instruments of destruction come from the Lord. When the Apostle Paul received the thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan, it proved to be a device God was using to make sure Paul was leaning on God's strength and not on his own.

Many nations are being raised up to threaten America. They may conspire against us. This is because our ways are not pleasing to the Lord. The Christians in America must begin to keep God's commandments if they wish to turn away from their land the severe judgments that are at hand.

Even if the Christian churches will not repent, insisting they are saved by grace and are ready to be caught up in an unscriptural "rapture," God will keep under His protection the individual believers who are looking to Him continually. They and their loved ones will abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

"No weapon forged against you will prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me," declares the LORD. (Isaiah 54:17—NIV)

Whenever we turn away from fleshly religionists and seek the mind of the Lord, self-willed believers will accuse us and slander us. Whoever departs from wickedness makes himself a prey of the carnal Christians. When this happens we are to go to the Lord and make sure that the accusations coming against us are not true. If they are we are to repent. If they are not true we are to wait on the Lord until He justifies us and brings forth our righteousness as the light and our judgment as the noonday.

If we choose to be obedient unto death, as was true of Abraham, then our fruit will be as that of Abraham. If we are willing to drink the cup of self-denial, the course of world history will be turned toward God.

God grant us the desire, courage, and strength to drink the cup, without hope of reward (other than to please God), so the fruit of our life will show others how to serve God appropriately. (from The Importance of Fruit)