Have you received the righteousness of God through faith in The Saviour, the pure, holy righteousness of God revealed in the gospel? Have you admitted that you are lost and under God’s curse? Are you standing at the cross in His righteousness? For the bride of Christ … Yes! Yes! Yes! But did you forget something at the cross, something you left there?

Rom 1:17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” ESV

We all came to the cross of Christ naked in our own righteousness, fearing the horrors of hell that could have been ours for eternity; a place forever without the presence of God! But we walked away from the cross, clothed in His righteousness. From that moment, the moment we passed out of death and into eternal life, God looks at us through Jesus, the revelation of His righteousness that is revealed in His gospel.

The word “revealed” in the Greek is to take off the veil. The grace of God was hidden before Jesus’ sacrifice, but now it is revealed and the light shines out of darkness … the gospel!

Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ESV

We came to the cross in faith and we walk away from the cross in faith, to ever live in faith. But sometimes that is such a hard challenge for us, and there is a good reason for that. We forget what we left at the foot of the cross … all of “our” righteousness.

As we press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:14) … spiritual maturity … we come up against challenges to the process that are there for one reason. They call to attention to something the Holy Spirit is setting before us that needs to be dealt with, which is ultimately tied to what we should have left behind… our righteousness, our filthy rags that God exchanged for His righteousness.

At those times of challenge, we need to stop and remember not only what we have been given at the cross but also what we left behind. That is the moment of grace, the moment of truth to grab hold of when we realize that we have once again picked up the burden of our own righteousness … our own right standing that is meaningless in the kingdom of God.

At those times we need to sing with Edward Mote those precious words of truth…

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
O, then I shall in Him be found;
Dressed in righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

On Christ, the solid Rock I stand, 
All other ground is sinking sand.

Yes, walking by faith requires that we do not let our past, our self-righteousness, slow us down and drag us back. We forever stand in the truth, clothed in His righteousness, not in our filthy rags that we left at the cross.