What kind of righteousness do you have? A true righteousness or the false outward looking good kind of righteousness?
Instead of that outward law-keeping false righteousness, we need a change of heart.
We need a change in how we view our connection to God. While performing religious rituals is not evil, we cannot depend on them as righteousness. We need serious discipleship.
Is your spiritual growth stagnant? Can you look back at your life and see it looking a bit more like Jesus than 5 years ago? How about one year ago?
Or is Jesus the singular focus and passion of your life? Are you asking for his help so that your life is resembling more of his ways, even his ways that seem difficult?
If not, what will it take for you to go deeper?
One practical application is to consider Jesus’ relationship with his disciples: life-to-life discipleship.
Who discipled you? How did they disciple you? Are you willing to regularly be vulnerable with someone to continue to grow deeper?
Attending worship services is not life-to-life discipleship. Attending Sunday school classes is not either. Reading the the Daily Bread not enough. These are all good activities, but they are not life-to-life discipleship.
How did Jesus disciple the disciples? They did life together! He taught them in the midst of regular life. Not in a classroom for one hour per week. He did give them assignments, which put them out of their comfort zone. He sent them out on mission trips.
What about you? We all do life with people. But are we talking about our relationships with God with those people? Or are we just complaining about things? Are we spurring one another on to make choices that better follow the way of Jesus? Not one of us has arrived at what could be called a truly righteous life. We should all be striving to look more like Jesus. Like his righteousness.
What will you commit to taking steps that go beyond where you are now?
Jesus is our only righteousness. We need to cling to him, to weld our lives to him. When that happens, we are changed from the inside out, and his Spirit dwells within us. He Spirit helps us become more righteous like Jesus. We put off the old way of life, and we put on the new way of Jesus. Our hearts, our desires, our thinking, our actions become more and more like his.
Righteousness means that the Fruit of the Spirit will be flowing from us. We simply cannot underestimate the importance of allowing the Spirit of God to grow his heart within us.
Jesus once taught, “By your fruits you will know them.” That’s how we discern whether we or others are truly righteous. By what we see produced from their lives.
So as we deal with the battles we face in life, spiritual warfare, relationships, personal, professional, health, financial, we first live in the truth, the truth of who Jesus is and who we are. We put on the Belt of Truth.
Then we put on the Breastplate of Righteousness, protecting our heart with the righteousness of Jesus, becoming more like him, depending on his strength.
Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 