The heavens have been shifting rapidly as we approach the Hebrew New Year of 5780 and Rosh Hashanah at sundown on Sept. 29, 2019. God is getting His people ready for double portion, and one of the access points we have been given in the heavenlies is understanding our righteousness.
At the beginning of 2019, the Lord had me share about standing in His righteousness and how this was a key for advancement this year. As we approach the new Hebrew calendar year, God reminded me with two dreams that the righteousness of God is essential if we want to have open heaven access this new year and always. In the dream, the Lord was sharing with me the importance of having a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees.
In Matthew 5:20, the Scripture reads, For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will in no way enter the kingdom of heaven.” Now no one on this earth can possibly have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees of their own doing. We know it is impossible to keep the whole law, yet Jesus kept the law to the letter.
As Matthew 5:17-18 reads, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have not come to abolish, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one dot or one mark will pass from the law until all be fulfilled.”
Jesus kept the whole law of God, and as born-again members of His family, we have met God’s requirements also. In addition to God’s requirements, He also lived to intervene by faith on our own laws. These laws are civil laws, standards, basic rules and expectations that we incorporate into our lives and into our identities. People need laws because laws reveal lack areas, and they have the appearance of covering fallen humans who need order, direction and guidance. There are good laws and bad laws; there are valid ones and invalid ones. No matter the laws, rules, standards or expectations, the Good News is that Jesus came to meet the higher laws of God and satisfy God’s requirements for those who could not, which is us, fallen humanity. He also came to satisfy the failure of us not keeping our own laws, rules, standards and expectations that we consider to be a part of our identity. When fallen humans need an identity, they will make one out of rules, regulations, standards and expectations. However, this is called self-righteousness or false righteousness. The Word of God tells us that we have been given His very own righteousness in our death, burial and resurrection in Him, and we have been stamped “not guilty” and are enough in God’s eyes.
The apostle Paul was challenged by the laws of God. He called them good and holy, yet he could not keep them. They were reminders of his failures and shortcomings and the more Paul wanted to please God and do what was right the more he discovered he could not.
He says, in Romans 7:4-6, “So, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may be married to another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, so that we may bear fruit for God. When we were in the flesh, the passions of sin, through the law, worked in our members to bear fruit leading to death. But now we are delivered from the law, having died to things in which we were bound, so that we may serve in newness of the Spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter of the law.”
Paul was reminding the Galatians that the Law has a place but it is not the power of the promise, only Jesus is.
In Galatians 3:18-22, the Word says:
For if the inheritance comes from the law, it no longer comes from the promise. But God gave it to Abraham through a promise. What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, until the Seed should come to whom the promise was made. And it was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not a mediator for only one party, but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? God forbid! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, righteousness would indeed come through the law. But the Scripture has confined all things under sin, that the promise through faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
Since righteousness comes by faith alone, Paul had to remember that the law was only a tutor to lead him and us to Christ. It was not the promise of our inheritance. What is the promise of our inheritance? It is that we are new creatures in Christ with a new identity that affords the benefits and blessings of being heirs to the promise.
People talk all the time about wanting open heaven access in the here in and now. It is possible, but we must understand first that we are heirs of the promise, and we get our royal identity in Him alone. We do not get it from what we do, say or connect ourselves to; that is called self-righteousness. God gives us His very own righteousness so we can surpass that of our own self- righteousness based on the law, our titles, or what we can and cannot do, which is the performance of life.
In order to have open heaven access in the new Hebrew calendar year of 5780 and the new Gregorian calendar of 2020, we need to understand His righteousness is our access point. When we learn to walk in the royalty that we are by access through His blood, we walk without condemnation, and this means we have freedom to exercise our faith, which gives us access to open-heaven encounters. You can only access the heavenlies by faith. The enemy wants us to live far below our inheritance as the children of God and under death and condemnation, but when we refuse to allow the law to strongarm us, and we endeavor to live as free children of faith, we will access heaven and its riches available to us.
The apostle Paul did not want God’s chosen to live anymore in condemnation, fear, shame or anxiety because Jesus bought our freedom and wanted us to realize the fullness of the purchase by His blood.
Romans 8:1-4 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and concerning sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
This is our access point as the royal children of God. We can rest through the Spirit by faith as we have open heaven access because of His righteousness. We are not called to live by a false righteousness of bragging over all we do that is good or suffering terribly even for doing what is wrong, because in essence, the righteousness that God is looking for is one by faith in what Jesus has already done. This is intense. This means access to open-heaven encounters, heavenly riches and resources that come by faith that we have acquired these things already and have access every day because of our righteousness in Him.
In Hebrews 4:14-16 (NASB) the author says, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
We have access now, let us walk in this confidence! When Jesus walked the earth, He was willing to heal and do miracles every day and never questioned His inheritance and the open-heaven access He had. He made a way for us that we would not either, yet we do because humanity carries a self-righteous focus. The enemy always reminds us of our sin, lack and weakness, so we must in the Hebrew Year of 5780 not let another day go by without making a commitment to live in the righteousness of Christ alone. We must wear His royal robe and crown that He gives to us in His word, and sit at the royal table in our hearts and minds with Him daily. Only then will we bless His heart and live out His desire, shared through the apostle Peter, which is to be a royal and chosen generation.
1 Peter 2:9-10 says, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Therefore, we have received mercy and open heaven access by His very own righteousness through our faith in Jesus Christ alone. Let us then go forth and live as chosen royal people of God. Those who practice this heavenly perspective daily will be leading the next generation of believers into the victorious Second Coming of the King.
Dr. Candice Smithyman is the founder of Dream Mentors International, a biblical life counseling and coaching educational organization that teaches and trains educators and coaches in the specialty of life coaching. She is also founder of the Glory Road TV show, where she hosts weekly interviews that are seen on internet TV, Faith USA, Facebook and her YouTube channel. She is also the host of the Spirit Fuel TV show at spiritfuel.tv or spiritfuel.me. Her ministry website is available at candicesmithyman.com and dreammentors.org, where people can grow prophetically and receive biblical and transformational life coaching for every area of their life. She is also co-founder of Freedom Destiny Church in Orange Park, Florida.
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