Righteous; literally means right. It means that we are right with God.
For us to understand what our righteousness means, we have to back this thing up a bit. Let’s talk about the law. The law could be the Ten Commandments or the commands of Jesus. The law is anything you must do to merit favor or avoid condemnation. We can become our own lawgivers too by telling ourselves that Gods favor and love is dependent on what we do. Our world revolves around the law. We see it in our homes, work, and school. We are rewarded for doing good and punished for doing bad.
The problem with the law is that it relies on you- your obedience, attitude, faith and sacrifice and I don’t know about you, but I just don’t have that much faith in myself. I have good days and I have bad days, but God’s standards aren’t just good but PERFECT.
The law is a mirror, it points you to yourself instead of Jesus. It’s about following a job instead of a person. We may think rules and regulations have an appearance of wisdom, but they don’t work because we’re not rule-keepers by nature. We were designs to rely on faith, not rules. Whenever we focus on our sins and behavior we lose focus of Jesus and all that he did for us.
The other problem with asking you to do anything for Jesus is that it can leave you trusting in what you have done instead of resting in what he has done. In the eyes of the law, you were disqualified by sin, but in the eyes of the Father, you have been qualified by grace. When we truly value Christ’s sacrifice, we would not dare cheapen it by adding our own.
GUYS! The kingdom doesn’t run on the law, it runs on grace. Jesus didn’t do most of it, he did all of it! He fulfilled the law for us for so we don’t have to! THIS IS GOOD FREAKING NEWS.
We are righteous by design and our behavior has nothing to do with it. The message of the law tells you to look at yourself but the truth of grace tells you to look at Jesus. We did nothing to become righteous and we can do nothing to become unrighteous. We need to change our thinking and start walking and talking like righteous people do. When you sin it takes absolutely no faith to feel unrighteous. It takes faith to look at the cross and believe that you are STILL righteous even when you mess up.
This is the good news of grace. It’s about trusting instead of trying. It’s not about impressing God with our performance but being impressed with HIS. God doesn’t bless us in response to our faithfulness, but His.
The bad news of the law declares “you are not perfect”. But the good news of grace responds with “but you have a high priest who is”. YALL! Do you get it? the ultimate purpose of the law is to show you that you are simply not capable of freeing yourself. The purpose is to point you to the one that already did.
So what’s the truth that changed my life? Righteousness. It’s the difference between law and grace. It’s what causes me to look at the cross instead of myself. When God looks at me He sees the finished works of the cross. Jesus bought us a way to have a relationship with the creator of the universe and have eternal life with him. He bought us right standing with God. It’s not about doing more, it’s about seeing more of Jesus. The work is finished and we get to sit back and rest in what Jesus did knowing nothing we do could ever add or take away from it. We are redeemed, blameless and righteous and there is nothing standing between us and God anymore. THANK YOU JESUS!!
So OBVIOUSLY I got “Righteous” tattooed on my arm. It’s a reminder that I’m no longer a slave to the law. It’s a reminder to stop looking in the mirror. It’s a reminder that I’m not right with God because of who I am and what I do, but because of who Jesus is and what he’s done.
If you read this whole thing you rock. SO HEY while you’re here… I still have fundraising to do to stay on the race. If you feel like giving you can Venmo me (Grace-Pettit) or donate on my blog. OKAY COOL y’all rock. The race is amazing. I love this life I’m living so much. ALSO…Heres a vlog from my adventure day in Thailand!! ENJOY!!!
