Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life, righteousness, and honor. Pr21.21
I find it hard at times, to get past my personal baggage. The word righteousness, somehow conjured up feelings of resentment, especially toward authority figures or worse, toward a self appointed authority seeking to impose personal scruples on me. Now my problem is that Scripture speaks a lot about righteousness and because the topic keeps coming up, I have felt the need to try and drop my baggage and get a better picture of what it means to be righteous.
One thing that has helped me, is trying not to draw too sharp a distinction between moral rightness and everyday sensible rightness. In a practical sense, we understand that right is right. There is a right way to open a bottle and a right way to approach God. If there is a right way, then there would also be a wrong one. Try opening a beer bottle upside down. Scripture tells me that one wrong way to approach God is by trusting my personal rightness. I can do right things but use them in wrong ways. I have to remind myself everyday, that though I try to do right, I still do wrong. God accepts me not because of personal works of righteousness but because of His mercy freely offered in Christ. All the mercy that I receive from God, comes from the accomplishments of Christ at the cross. A person does not get right with God, so much as they are made right with Him. Christ accomplishes this, we only accept it, and we do so, when we accept Him. It is interesting that what is right can be used wrong. It is right to feed the poor, it is wrong to feed the poor and use it as a bargaining chip with God. God loves what is right but He does not approve when right things are used in wrong ways. 2/6/07 ts
Just me trying to be honest with God.
