Most people that I have talked with over the last few years feel that their walk before the Lord is inferior. They seem to bear some measure of guilt or inadequacy. Why? 

Today I read:   “So that he may give you the inner strength to be blameless, by reason of your holiness, when you stand before God our Father at the coming of our Lord Yeshua with all his angels.”  1 Thess. 3:13  (Jewish New Testament) 

Imagine, after only a few months of time training the Thessalonians, Paul expected them to be holy enough that they could stand blameless before God at the return of Jesus. How could this be? 

Paul taught that we have been joined (or united) to the Christ. Thus, we rely on his righteousness and not our own. I guess you could say that we participate in his righteousness, and we walk it out in our daily lives. It is a real life experience for us. But how? 

Holiness is a habit that results from a holy life. Ouch! Maybe that won’t make sense to you. I’ve observed that we actually don’t have a cultural construct for the biblical terms holy or holiness. So to restate simply:  A holy life is a life that is set apart or separated to the Lord Jesus. In essence we give all that we are to him and live differently as a result. This change in our lifestyle is utterly dependent upon our trusting reliance upon the Lord himself. Apart from him we can do nothing  as it relates to righteous  living before the Father. This resulting change in how we live can be described as holiness. 

So if we rely entirely upon Jesus for our righteousness, where is guilt and inadequacy? Our life experience has already demonstrated that we are desperate sinners apart from him. But our hope is in the Lord Jesus and we trust in him alone. Right? So as we abide in him daily and continually, our conscience is clean. Why? Because he is clean. 

So in the inward parts of our being where Jesus lives, he gives us strength to actually be blameless. Jesus is looking for a bride without spot or wrinkle. This applies to each of us individually. Our lives can be blameless at the return of the Lord. For us to be found in this state when he comes again, we must choose to habitually dwell in the Lord—that is to make him our habitation. Then his righteousness becomes our righteousness and when he returns we are adequately prepared for him.