Years ago, I hired someone to work for me. This person was helping me out, but I ultimately thought I was the one helping because this person really needed work to provide for children, self, etc. I knew this person was not here legally, but I thought that helping with the needs of this family was more important than the legality. Then, something valuable came up missing. So, here I was with something seemingly stolen, and all signs pointed to it being taken by this worker. That I had hired. Illegally.
“But, God, wasn’t I helping this person? Am I not supposed to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, help the weak? Why would this happen?” God used this circumstance as well as His word to teach me that righteousness is always more important than anything else. I feel silly even telling this story because it seems so insignificant and trivial, but it was massive in my life as God made me KNOW this was what He was teaching me in an undeniable way. I truly thought I was doing what was right by helping someone in need. God wants us to help others, but He wants us to be righteous in doing so. He will never call us to do anything that would make us break the law or His commandments. He can’t. He is Just and it is not, nor will it ever be, in His nature. Can He work through our unrighteousness? Absolutely. He doesn’t need us to do anything, but He chooses us to be vessels for Him. We shouldn’t want to be dirty vessels when the Light of the World is shining through us!
Righteousness is defined as being morally justifiable or right. It is also defined as being free from guilt or sin. Righteousness is hard. We will fail one hundred and seventy-seven thousand times…this week…but we are called to strive to be like Jesus. We know we will never be perfect this side of heaven, but do we give up and stop seeking? Do we just profusely ask for forgiveness? Thankfully, Romans 6 can help to clear that up for us:
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? Romans 6:15,16 (ESV)
Christ purchased us with His blood; therefore, we are His. We live our lives in surrender and obedience to Him. When we fall, we grab ahold of grace and let it pick us back up. So many times, though, we cling to the grace that Christ offers and don’t want to let go. We should most definitely cling when we need it; and PRAISE HIM for that grace, SHOUT of that grace, and GIVE THANKS indefinitely for that grace! Sometimes we can’t pry our dirty fingernails off that grace, though, and allow faith to completely transform us and make us whole. When we’re only clinging to grace, we are continuously begging for forgiveness and never trying to turn from our sin. We need to realize that His grace isn’t going anywhere (hallelujah!), and we need to step out in obedience.
How do we become righteous? We adhere to the laws of God, but we also adhere to the laws of the land. Romans 13 tells us:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Romans 13:1(ESV)
I haven’t committed any of the BIG offenses, so I’m a law-abiding citizen, right? If we are told to be subject to the governing authorities, and we are not, then we are disobedient. Too many times we separate the laws of the land from the laws of God. We tell ourselves that we are obedient to the commands of Christ – we go to church, we are faithful to our marriage, we help with local charities, we pray, we read our Bible. Those pesky laws of the land don’t apply to us, though, because we don’t see them as affecting anyone but us, and they’re not eternal, are they? Cheating on your taxes, buying a car tag in the wrong county to save money, not buckling your seatbelt, speeding (knife in my lead foot right there). No, I’m not trying to put us under a legalistic stronghold. I’m just trying to bring to light some of the ways that we blatantly sin and sometimes don’t even realize we are sinning, or maybe we talk ourselves out of it being sin.
Do you know what else seeking righteousness entails? Being a rule follower. Maybe it’s not a law or even a specific commandment of God, but when we break rules, our pride is saying that we know better than those who made the rules. When we side-step those rules, even if we are doing so to help someone out, we don’t look very righteous. We have to put our pride aside and follow the straight and narrow, regardless of what we think we know or what we may really know better. It’s about obedience, plain and simple.
We seek righteousness because the Bible tells us to seek it. We seek righteousness because we are in love with a God who chooses to save us and work everything out for our good. We want to show Him our devotion for that! Don’t seek righteousness because you think it will cancel out some sin in your life. Nothing you could ever do in a million and fifty years could ever cancel out one ounce of sin. Only the death of a perfect life could do that. Guess what? Already done! Your seeking of righteousness is not for anyone else’s sake either. Yes, we want others to see us doing the right thing so that they will ultimately be pointed to God, but our motive for doing the right thing is to be obedient to the God we LOVE.
So, sure, we all want to be obedient, or so we say, but are we actively praying for God to reveal the areas in which we need to be perfected? A few weeks ago, God placed this topic of righteousness on my heart to write about. I tried to talk Him out of it. You see how well that worked. I didn’t want to write about it because that meant I would have to confront it in my own life. Begrudgingly (just being honest here) I listened to Him and earnestly prayed for Him to help me muddle through it. I started out thinking about all of the ways I’ve seen others around me lack righteousness. Don’t we all do that? We sit in church and listen to the sermon and immediately think of all of the other people that we wish were sitting here listening because that would most definitely help them to change their ways. All the while, God is trying to wake US up with that message, and we are too proud and self-righteous to see it. This is exactly where I was. “Lord, show me how I can bring to light what these others are doing in a way that will change them. Then, make sure they read it.” In the good fashion of patience and love that God so eloquently offers me at every pass and turn, He showed me way more than what I asked. What is that saying about pointing fingers? You point a finger at another and three fingers are pointed back at you? Yeah, that’s it. And that’s exactly what happened. I found myself clinging to that grace and asking for forgiveness once again. I begged Him to help me step out in faith and work on the areas in my life that need to be made perfect. There’s A LOT, y’all. So many places need to be made perfect that I don’t have a single second to spend looking at others and trying to point out their mess.
The Bible tells us to go to our brothers and sisters in love and help them with their sin. We are to do it in love and with humility, but we are to look to our own selves first. We can’t help each other out if we aren’t willing to work on our own stinky selves. No, we do not have to be completely perfect to confront another about sin, but we most definitely need to be actively working on it. We can’t camp out in certain sins because they are too hard to tackle. When we love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, we will seek to be righteous because that is an act of love to Him.
So, are you ready to pray that scary prayer?
Dear God, thank you for your grace! I need it every hour of every day. But Lord, I don’t want to be stuck in a place where I constantly turn to it for the same sin. I want You to help me overcome my sin. Perfect me, Lord! Help me to reflect on the places that I spend the majority of my time, and show me how I’m being disobedient in those places. Whether it’s in the car, at work, at home, wherever, please show me what I need to work on to be one step closer to righteousness. Help me not to camp out in the hard-to-take-on places, but help me to look to You for guidance and direction and a place to start to fix it. Let my faith not be passive, Lord. Help me to make it active, not so that I can get any glory from it, but so that my life can be a living sacrifice to YOU and so that others might see You in me. All for YOUR glory! Amen.