Righteousness by Faith

ARE YOU A CRACKHEAD !
"A Wise Man Provides an Inheritance for his Children"

Obviously I'm trying to be provocative. If you have read much of my blog you know that I am a little hard core about addictions. Crackhead has come to be a general term for anyone addicted to anything, often as a joke. Believe me, I have been called a crackhead because I can't remember anything. No brains no service so they say.
To me, this is the Bible definition of an addict, a crackhead if you will.
Philippians 3 : 18 & 19. "....enemies of the Cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, Whose GOD is their Belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things."
Now, from the same source, a description of discipleship.
"I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore as many as would be perfect, be thus minded, and if any in anything be otherwise minded God will reveal this unto you. Nevertheless, let us walk by the same rule, let us all mind the same thing." Verses 14 to 16.
I Corinthians 9 : 24 - 27. "...they which run in a race all run, but one receives the prize. So run that you may obtain. ...every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. So I run and I fight, not as one that beateth the air, but I keep my body under subjection so that when I preach I myself will not be rejected."

This is a pretty good picture of Righteousness by Faith. Many would interpret it as righteousness by works. What's the difference? The opposite of Righteousness by faith is; unrighteousness excused by grace, which is really self-righteousness. God covers our unrighteousness, but He doesn't excuse it or condone it.
We are judged by our works, but we are saved by grace. He has us covered. The best definition is; we are saved by a relationship, by knowing Him. The way to know Him is to follow Him. This is called discipleship. Pressing toward the mark, winning the race.
Righteousness by faith is a process. It doesn't matter where we've been or even where we are. It's where we are going from this moment on. People have always been easily confused about faith and works. It's so simple though. "No one will be saved by their works, but no one will be saved without them."
"Most of our sin is laziness, the rest of it is ignorance, and it's all selfishness." You can't just sit on the couch be justified. You have to get up and get to work and to school. Keep trying, don't give up and don't look back.
What does this have to do with providing an inheritance? It's all about family. Not just your own family, but the whole family of mankind. The older I get the more I think about what kind of an inheritance have I provided for my family. The older I get the more I realize it's not about money or things. You know the old saying, "The best things in life are not things." Probably the first thing I've tried to bequeath to my children and anyone else I've tried to help to grow up is to control their appetite. People don't realize how critical this is. Addicts are made not born. If children haven't learned good habits of eating and drinking at home, they're not going to learn them at school or work. Naturally the best way is to be an example and to be there.
I would never abandon my dog let alone my family for: one beer ( even if it was free ), or one cigarette, or one tattoo ( I've never seen a tattoo that looked good, that didn't look dirty.) or one mutilated body part with hardware ( talk about rude and irreverent ), or one horse ride when my kids are left behind, or any selfish wasteful vacation when so many of the family of man are starving, or one football game, or one idolatrous ( bottled ) song to listen to while my children are ignored, or even an hour work out when there's real work to be done.
I am amazed how many so called Christian people in this country can justify any and all of these things because they can afford it. It's all right if you have the time and the money to provide that kind of an inheritance. "Prosperity is the most dangerous thing to spirituality." Also, "Prosperity produces a mass of professors." Everyone wants to have their cake and eat it to. Waste as much money as possible and profess to be somebody or something at the same time.
Now we have produced a generation of people who are "...lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God", "who don't know clean from unclean...holy from unholy", "who's god is their belly", and like the people of Nineveh, "...don't know their left hand from their right." Of all the things you can imagine, they call it Jesus.
The time is come for history to repeat itself. It's time to take our medicine. Time to be really poor. The last great " time of trouble", that will produce a remnant. "How fortunate to be poor" Luke 6 : 20.