‘The Lord is our righteousness’ (Jeremiah 23:6)

Jesus is Jehovah, the self-existent and immutable God. He is our righteousness. To this end He assumed our nature; came into our place; laboured, suffered, bled and died in our stead. We have no righteousness by nature, but we have the righteousness of God by grace. ‘”Their righteousness is of me”, says the Lord’ [Isaiah 54:17].

Jesus completed for us all that was necessary to justify us; He made an end of sin; He magnified the law and made it honourable; He brought in everlasting righteousness; and now He clothes us with the garments of salvation, and covers us with the robe of righteousness.

In Him we possess all justice can demand, or God require, for our full and eternal justification. This portion is not necessary merely for one day, but every day; it silences an accusing conscience, confounds Satan, strengthens the soul, and glorifies God.

So let’s look today, all day long, and every day, to Jesus, as “The Lord our righteousness”. Let’s go to duty, to conflict, to trials, in the strength of the Lord; making mention of His righteousness. This is our plea at the throne of grace, our song in the house of pilgrimage, and our confidence in the prospect of death.

Saviour divine, we know thy name,
And in that name we trust;
Thou art the Lord, our Righteousness,
Thou art our joy and boast.

THE DAILY REMEMBRANCER by James Smith (1802-1862)

Journal Jottings

‘I want to feel that God is my Father, and to plead with him in confidence, for all that He hath promised. I often fear that my ministry will become barren and unfruitful, and wonder that it has not done so before. I am sure that there is an intimate connection between the closet and the pulpit; therefore if I was more alive with God in secret, I should be more profitable to the Lord’s people, and more useful to sinners, in public.

O that my God would thoroughly sanctify me, filling me with the Holy Spirit and with power! May the prayers of the Lord’s people be answered for me, and may my poor petitions be answered for them’.