The robe of righteousness is put on by faith, not by effort. It comes entirely from Christ, not from us. We do not work it in; the Holy Spirit works it out.
And the practical outworking of the nature of Christ is His work as we yield more and more to Him ... which is a progressive work as He reveals more and more of ourselves to us. This is why Paul went from considering himself as the least of the apostles (1 Corinthians 15:9) at the beginning of his ministry to the least of the saints (Ephesians 3:8) in the middle of his ministry to the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15) near the end of his life. For closer we draw to Him the more we see our own inability and the weaknesses of our flesh and the glory of His perfection and His provision for us. Indeed, the longer we walk with Him the more we experience and appreciate His grace. As the old hymn says: the longer we serve Him, the sweeter He grows!
Anyway, I sense perhaps you are SDA in your beliefs. Do you, perchance, hold to the doctrine of Last Generation Theology?
