Jeremiah 23:6 In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, The Lord Our Righteousness.

Jehovah Tsidkenu; the Lord our righteousness.

Perhaps the most confusing of all interactions with our God is righteousness. This is because of the definition as it applies to Jesus Christ, being right, not only being right but being right always. Do I feel right all the time? No, of course not, we all make mistakes. I constantly have to come before the cross to confess my condition and lay my sins down. Not so with Christ.

Genesis 15:6 And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

That is a declarative state, an accounting, and what other accounting term is declared to us? Justification.

Romans 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

Romans 3:25-27 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

To declare His righteousness, this is a declarative state. God said so therefore it is, to God. Not so much to us if we do not have a proper understanding of God, His personality and His character.

2 Corinthians 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Righteousness for us is both declarative and positional because we are in Christ and any righteousness in us is Him.

Ezekiel 48:35 It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The Lord is there.

Jehovah Shammah, the Lord is there.

If the lost are to seek God, don’t they need to know where He resides?

While we are talking about who God is in relationship we should keep in mind that while we know this to be true, the lost are blind and they do not see the truth.

The truth is that God resides in me. I cannot just blurt out the truth to an unbeliever who is seeking God. That truth is revealed in two ways. First they must know what to look for in God related to His character and personality. Secondly they should be able to see those traits in me.

2 Corinthians 5:20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.

As ambassadors we do not speak for ourselves but only those words given to us by our Lord. As ambassadors of the Kingdom of God our conduct in the world needs to reflect our citizenship and our relationship. Being reconciled to God is all about Christ’s propitiation, a standing in for us, an acceptble substitute when it came to suffering death for our sins.

Being reconciled to God is like that in ambassadorship, where we stand in for Christ in this world for the lost. We sacrifice our self-interests in favor of God’s will to draw the lost to Himself. We do all this for the first character trait of God, love. Love compels us.

Luke 14:23 (NASB) And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.