True Righteousness

Sometimes I struggle to keep a righteousness by the law or by my own strength.

But this is what Isaiah says in chapter 64:6

All of us have become like one who is unclean,

    and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;

we all shrivel up like a leaf,

    and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

Our righteousness the best we can do not even considering our sins are like filthy rags.  Yet in Christ we can say Amen my righteousness does not come from my works. In fact we bring nothing except sin and punishment by our acts. For it is Christ's righteousness on which we stand.

2 Corinthians 5:21

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Lord teach me to say with Paul even as he counts his "good" works as he repeats his resume of righteousness by his own strength as he wrote in Philippians 3

7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

I think sometimes I trade the law for a law of my heart condition instead of the grace of God through Christ. Lord God you know my heart, you know that by my own strength I cannot attain righteous, and I cannot will my heart to change. But on my knees I might find in you God strength and healing and grace as I ask you to change my heart God. 

Lord teach me this, sink it deep in my heart as I struggle in the face of ministry and the seemingly insurmountable China GP. Lord teach it to me in my works and in my sins that my identity and righteousness come from Christ alone through faith. Bring me back to faith in what Jesus has already done for me and all people.
Amen