Or you Righteous?

Galatians 3:10-14

The Bible proclaims, to be righteous you must live by faith; the understanding of “righteous” is very important.  Hebrews 11:1 gives us a clear understanding of faith.  What is meant by “righteous”?  In Matthew 5:6, Jesus gives this insight, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.”  Jesus also warned us to not do righteous acts so that we would get the praise of men, Matthew 6:1. In Matthew 6:33 Jesus said, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”   

Jesus tells us if we want to be blessed, we will get very serious about seeking out righteousness, and we will not do it to look good or earn points with others, but if we first seek His kingdom and His righteousness, then all these things will be added to us.  But we still have not answered the question of what is righteous or righteousness?  In searching for the meaning, I went back to the book of beginnings, Genesis 15:6, “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.”  Now that help, to some degree, because Abram was a man like me in that he was human, but unlike me he had never read the Bible and when God spoke to him he had to believe that their was a Creator and that He had spoke to him and them he opted to obey that voice and that is what God calls faith.  But more than that God credited it to Abram as righteousness.

My search took me to Romans 5:1, “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit or our God.”  Once more we have questions, is being justified and being righteous the same thing?  As my search was intensifying, it took me to 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, and the first part of Scripture tell us that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God, and then it spells our with much clarity what is meant by unrighteous.  Verse eleven gives us this information; “And such were some of you.  But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”  It is getting somewhat clearer for me, and I hope for you because of the faith that God has given to me to believe in Him, we’ve been blessed and made righteous, or just, in His sight. 

I came full circle back to Galatians 3:24-25, “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.”  In fact it states in Romans 3:20, that no matter how well you or I perform, we will not meet God’s standard, and that the laws were put there to make us conscious of sin and the need of grace.  The bottom line is faith in Christ Jesus has put us in right standing with God.  He sees you and I as righteous or just in His sight, because of that relationship, not based on performance.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice