The Anointing and The Glory - Righteousness - David Mitts

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.  (2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV)

You could say the purpose of the cross was for us who receive Messiah, to become the righteousness of God, in Him.  We have been pressing in for revelation of what it feels like to operate in the anointing of God.  I know we have been trained not to walk by feelings but by faith in the Word of God.  The Word however contains feelings galore!

Listen to "The Anointing and the Glory - Righteousness"

For example, David said:

Let them shout for joy and be glad, who favor my righteous cause; And let them say continually, "Let the Lord be magnified, who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant." (Psalms 35:27 NKJV)

Favoring the righteous cause of the Lord, like Destiny House, brings a shout of joy and a gladness of heart. There is a shout in heaven and a corresponding shout on earth.  It also brings a true prosperity that is from the Lord.  When the Lord prospers you, it releases joy and gladness because you can trust in the goodness of His reward.  He brings a reward with no sorrow added.

Notice that the scripture doesn’t say: “Let them “be without feelings and walk by faith”.  No, the feelings are included, joy and gladness.  So, the sterile doctrine of faith over feelings is another testimony to the infection of the Bible with Greek disembodied thought.

Plato taught that the soul was trapped in a body.  The body was an untrustworthy aspect of life in contrast with the purity of the mind.  This is called dualism and its impact on the Gospel through the years is to create a lifeless form of worship of ideas and theologies.  This is understandable when the objective is control.  Emotions and feelings then become the uncertain variables and passion is to be avoided at all costs.

In the middle of this morass, is the idea of righteousness.  If feelings are bad, then righteousness cannot be felt but just “imputed”.  Imputed is the word most connected with righteousness.  It is the idea that you are righteous because Jesus made you righteous, like being pregnant.  But, as anyone who has been pregnant can tell you, pregnancy is an experience filled with strong emotions and feelings.

Righteousness then also can have tremendous feelings and one of them is passion.  When we operate in righteousness, in the Holy Spirit we experience the passion of the union of our heart with our “rightness of being”!  The objective of the cross was restoration!

In order to have restoration you have to have an original design.  If I buy an antique car with the goal of restoring it, then I need to know what it originally was like.  What color, what were the engine parts it was intended to have, what kind of seats etc. Restoration is not just fixing something or someone but making them new as if they had never been affected by the world.

Let’s back up a few verses from our verse for today’s teaching and activation up to 2 Corinthians 5:16-21:

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:16-21 NKJV).

This is an instruction on righteousness. It begins with encouraging us to know or regard anyone according to the flesh.  What is regarding anyone according to the flesh?

It means reacting to the corruption that is in the world through lust. Peter said:

as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Peter 1:3-4 NKJV).

The root of all corruption is lust.  We all see through the eyes of lust when we see the flesh.  I don’t just mean sexual lust.  I mean the lust of life that is a result of living in fear.   At its root, lust is not just a desire for something; it is an obsession that arises out of not trusting in God’s ways or His plans for the fulfillment of our desire in a way that is for our highest good and fulfills our destiny.

Going back to the car analogy, if the car is a 1964 mustang and I am restoring it, I am restoring it to the manufacturer’s specification.  I am NOT saying well this could have been better so I’ll juice up this or that. No! I am trusting the manufacturer’s design.

So it is with God.  There is a corruption in the world that comes from a hunger for a perfection that is made up out of our ideas and concepts of what is better for us than what God has planned for us.   This is what is corrupting our righteousness.  It is based on the fear that we are missing out.  So we make trades or exchanges in our lives that are corrupt. We need desperately to have a clear vision, not just a generic one of our unique design in God that He is restoring.  This is called His Will for us uniquely. This is righteousness. Look with me at Ephesians 5:15-20:

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:15-20)

This is a key to unlocking righteousness. You see God gives us the freedom to think.  This thinking or if you like, believing, in our heart shapes who we are.  Yet our thinking is corrupted in a world based on images that seek to captivate us.  We are a very special unique vessel of righteousness, an instrument of righteousness.

and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. (Romans 6:13 NASB)

To enter into agreement with God’s original intent for our unique instrument, we need to know that intent!  How??? Well Paul gives us one way to be filled with the Spirit and to speak to one another in spirit-activated songs.  There is a song for our lives.  We listen to music and we listen for feeling and agreement.  We want to hear our story in the song.  We want our feelings to be spoken in the song.  Paul tells us to make a melody to the Lord in our hearts.  He tells us to be thankful in that melody.

You see the root of lust is unthankfulness.  I always want to change things so they can be “better”.  I can’t enter the kingdom in that state.  I can only enter in, when I am filled with the Spirit and overflowing in song with thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is the heart gate.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (Philippians 4:6 NASB)

Lust says compare.  What am I missing?  How are they better?  What do I need to have to win?  

God says be filled with Me.  Be thankful for Me and the treasures I have put in your life.  Be so in attunement with the plans that I have for you that you sing them out of your heart.  This is the family, I have chosen for you.  This is the work I have chosen for you. Rejoice and be thankful, for in thankfulness my kingdom is released.  Thanksgiving is a sign of faith, trust.  He who is faithful with a little will be given much.

He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much; and he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much. (Luke 16:10 NKJV)

Activation: Sing a song of thanksgiving. Ariel Little Mermaid.