Being Right

Romans 10: 3

For not knowing about God’s righteousness and seeking to establish their own, they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God.

I’ve saved this message for the end so that in this final devotion we can see the encapsulation of Jesus’ message on righteousness and, therefore, be more able to integrate the truth of his teaching into our thoughts, hearts and practices.

I said last week that righteousness and holiness are not the same thing though they are often treated as synonyms. The actual translation of righteousness is “as it should be.” My esteemed friend, Chuck Goldberg, brought this out in our conversation on righteousness. He was saying that righteousness is nothing more, or less, than just being in our “right” place with Christ. It is allowing our lives, actions, etc. to just be as they should be. When we follow Christ and follow his teachings, things line up, and isn’t that “as it should be.”

It makes perfect sense once you can wrap your head around it. If we wish to be righteous, if we wish to practice righteousness, we only need let things align as they rightfully should. We don’t need a mallet to drive the proverbial square peg into the round hole of our existence. It is not a matter of force or will power. It is the simple BEING with Christ in his holiness. We need to relax in his presence and just follow. Unrighteousness is more often a product of our will and our mental constructs. When we try to be holy in our own strength and according to our perceptions of righteousness, we are most likely to go astray, finding ourselves in works of the flesh rather than righteousness.

In a sense, righteousness is simple, perhaps not easy always, but simple because in its most basic iteration, it is just following in Jesus’ footsteps. We don’t need to figure out much. Just put your foot where Jesus trod. Do what he did. Learn of him. Let his teachings be your path and guide.

We get ourselves in trouble when we try to make righteousness into a spiritual ritual when it is actually living and walking with Jesus. Being right is just Being with Jesus. We have created religious monuments of rites, rituals, and services. We have built mountainous doctrines in our attempts to be righteous which is amazing when we discover how simple Jesus made it.

Self-righteousness is always hard. In fact, it is impossible for us to be righteous. That is one of the reasons we needed Jesus. He just is righteous. Therefore, we only need hide ourselves in him, become intertwined with him. It was this ideal which inspired the Ivey Ministries logo. Maybe the logo can inspire you and be a reminder of the kind of relationship Jesus wants with you. The more you two intertwine, the more you will find “rightness” isn’t so farfetched an idea. Rightness (righteousness) is just being with Jesus and allowing him to influence our way of Being. Be with him, in him and be “right” with God.

Rightness

2 Corinthians 5: 21          NIV

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Isn’t this just amazing?? God took the sinless Jesus and turned him into sin for us. The He took the righteousness of Jesus and gave it to us. Wow! Jesus was righteous, who would argue with that but in this substitutionary miracle we became the righteousness of God. So how does this work? 
 
Well, the key words are “in him”. Those who are “in” Christ have become the righteousness of God, but what does this really mean? We are all saved, does that mean we are all righteous? Does that mean we all act like we are righteous? Can you be saved and not be “in” Jesus? 
 
Righteousness means that we have right standing with God. It does not mean that we always act right, that we always do the things we ought to do. It also does not mean moral conduct. If you look up the word righteousness in a dictionary you will get that idea but it takes Jesus out of the equation. It is a worldly view. Jesus took (became) our burden of sin so that we could stand in the presence of God clean and pure. It is not about anything we have done or will do. You can’t act righteous. You can only “be” righteous and that is entirely about what Jesus did for us.

I am listening to a song as I type these words and the lyric speaks directly to this miracle of righteousness: “For now there is no condemnation, I am under the blood of the lamb.” That is the key, Jesus’ blood paid the price of our sin that we can stand sinless before God. That is just amazing to me. Knowing how we behave sometimes, God worked out this plan for us to be able to be with Him sinless and whole. The key is being “in Christ” and thank God for our savior.