BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

B V O V : 7 to ever do enough to be right in God's eyes. I used to think the same thing because that's what the religious world has taught. But the religious system is wrong! I found that out when I fi nally received the revelation that I'm the righteousness of God in Christ and recorded a song about it. The Christian radio stations (which back then were still in bondage to religion) wouldn't play it. To them, that sounded like heresy. Bless their hearts. The disc jockeys at those stations were good people but, like me, most of them had been brought up in churches where the one verse everyone knew was Romans 3:23: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." That's a sorrowful verse when you take it out of its setting! It leaves the impression that we're all destined to be sinners forever. That we're all doomed, with no hope of ever being anything but unrighteous before God. Read the verse in context, however, and you get a whole di§ erent picture. You realize verse 23 is sandwiched between verses 22 and 24, and those verses don't doom us to unrighteousness at all. On the contrary, they declare: "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no di§ erence…being justifi ed freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." Notice that says the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ. It's by faith, not by deeds. It's not something you have to earn or attain. Righteousness is a free gift that's been provided at God's expense for all mankind. This is what I call "The Great Exchange!" Jesus was made sin with our sins to make us righteous with His righteousness. He su§ ered our shame to give us His glory. He was condemned to set us free. He was made sick with our sicknesses so we can be healed and live in health. He was cast out of the presence of God to make us welcome there. He went to hell to take us to heaven. "(For if by one man's o§ ense [the sin of Adam] death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore as by the o§ ence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justifi cation of life" (Romans 5:17-18, emphasis mine). In other words, the blood of Jesus solved the sin problem! It broke sin's power and made His right-standing with the Father available to all. His rightness before God is hanging low, like a glorious shining cloud, over every living human being on this planet right now. It's come upon all men. All you have to do is take it by faith! Once you do, you're no longer a sinner who's come short of the glory of God. You're a saint who, having "been sanctifi ed through the o§ ering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all," has "no more consciousness of sins" (Hebrews 10:10, 2, NKJV). "But Brother Copeland, I'm not perfect. Even though I'm a Christian, sometimes I still sin. What do I do then?" Repent immediately! Run to your heavenly Father, confess your sin and receive His forgiveness (1 John 1:9), and put that sin and the consciousness of it behind you. A sin consciousness identifi es with Adam. A righteousness consciousness identifi es with Jesus the resurrected LORD, and it's your union with Him that empowers you to keep sin under your feet. So even when you stumble, stay conscious of your righteousness in Christ. To do that, of course, you'll have to spend daily time in The WORD. You'll also have to stay vigilant because the devil will continually try to beat you down. "You're not the righteousness of God!" he'll say. "I know some of the things you've done. You're a mess, and God has been mad at you for a long time." The devil says that to all of us. But it's a bald- faced lie! God told the Body of Christ in Isaiah 54:9, "As I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee." God isn't mad anymore! He's disappointed sometimes, but He's never mad at any believer. He poured all His mad out on Jesus when He became our Substitute, and now neither one of them are mad at anyone but the devil. Remind the devil of that the next time he comes We're currently hiring for a variety of roles. Visit kcm.org /careers Come Change the World with Us! The blood of Jesus solved the sin problem! It broke sin's power and made His right-standing with the Father available to all.... All you have to do is take it by faith!

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