Right or Righteous Podcast Episode

Do you want to be right or righteous?

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1806754/12360017https://www.buzzsprout.com/1806754/12360017

Right or Righteous?

Whoever pursues righteousness and unfailing love will find life, righteousness, and honor. – Proverbs 21:21 NLT

I’ll share this, God has been working on me when it comes to righteousness. I’ll keep this post short because I will discuss the topic in greater detail in a podcast.

He’s challenging me to understand the difference between right and righteousness. When I say right, I’m referring to the desire to always be right. Not the inherent rightness of righteousness.

It’s no coincidence that the verse mentions the pursuit of righteousness and unfailing love together. Perfect love keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5), so righteousness can’t simply be about being right, it has to be more than that, deeper than that. See, true, godly righteousness pairs with unfailing love.

Jesus is the perfect example, right? Jesus is righteousness. Jesus is also unfailing love and its perfect example. Jesus, of course, was always right, but His pursuit was one of righteousness and unfailing love.

If you’re working to pursue the two, righteousness and unfailing love, you’ll find life, righteousness, and honor. In Jesus is fullness of life, righteousness, and honor. When you work like Jesus worked and pursue what Jesus pursued, you’ll be able to receive what Jesus has to offer.

So, how has God been working with me in understanding the difference between right and righteousness? Well, that’s a podcast chat, and I’ll just say it’s a humbling lesson.

Be Usable

I don’t want God to be on the lookout for someone he can use. It would break my heart for God to come to my city, into to my home and look into my room and find no one who’s usable. Notice, I didn’t say He’d find no one, but find no one who will allow Him to use them.

I can’t be so comfortable that I’m not usable. I can’t be so focused that I miss the point. I can’t be so goal-driven that I miss the main goal–being usable for God. And I certainly can’t be so engulfed in sin that God makes no difference to me.

“I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn’t have to destroy the land, but I found no one. – Ezekiel 22:30 NLT

God is calling us to stand in the gap. He’s calling us to live righteous. The question is, are we willing to answer?

The Book of Amos

God is gracious and merciful. That’s true. And we often forget that. We even take it for granted I’d say. God is also righteous and just. He has to judge sin. Dare I say, we forget that too.

We unfortunately get so comfortable with sin that we expect God’s grace and mercy to remove consequences. Because of such, we are surprised when God brings judgment on those wrongs.

I don’t know that I’d say God is a perfect mixture/balance of grace, mercy, justice, and righteousness. He is all of each. I know it’s hard to comprehend. In fact, we naturally can’t comprehend it. So, all this leads into the book of Amos in the Bible.

In chapter 1, we see God saying that He is going to bring judgment. Yes, God is merciful, but now is the time for judgment. His people have ignored the warning signs and trampled upon grace, committed terrible atrocities, and it must be judged.

I admit, I don’t understand how it seems that some people can do such awful things and seemingly get away with it. And while Amos so far my seem harsh, it’s declaring God justice. I do not pretend that the following statement is an easy thought process. It is not. But we have to choose to take trust God and know that God’s justice will be served. People aren’t getting away with anything. Justice is coming.

God will give grace. He will give mercy. But He will also give justice. And we have to acknowledge that each will be given in accordance with His holy will in His perfect timing.

The Comparison Trap – Job 21

The Right Path

So follow the steps of the good, and stay on the paths of the righteous. Proverbs 2:20 NLT

This proverb was discussing staying on the right path. Before this it was warning men to stay off the path of sexual impurity with the adulterous woman . Which makes me wonder why in our society we have the double standard of sex being OK for men, Proverbs clearly rejects that. But I digress. This verse made me think of something.

It’s saying follow the steps of the good and stay on the path of the righteous. And today, in particular I had already thought about the examples set for our generations. Some might ask, how do you follow or stay on this path that has never been walked out before you? And I’d say that’s a valid question. How does one become a good father without having an example? How do you long for the benefit and closeness of an intimate relationship with Christ without having one modeled in your life? If the good path hasn’t been walked before you, how do you get on it? Let alone stay on it?

Honestly, all I could come up with is, be the one to mark out the path. I wish we all could have had those examples we needed. But we don’t always have them or may never have them. However, that doesn’t change the fact that we’re responsible for what we leave behind still.

No one can teach you longing for Jesus. You have to want it yourself. I’m sorry if the path of the righteous wasn’t a close personal example set, but there is still a path of the righteous that has been set. Jesus walked it out and left His footprints for us to follow.

If no one before you left the right path to take, are you willing to be the one that does?

God Loves Justice

God will bring justice. This was the recurring message in the chapters in Psalms. It is ongoing that God will bring justice.

God will bring justice to the orphans. God will bring justice to the oppressed. God will bring justice to the persecuted. God will bring justice period.God sees all that is going on. God sees the violence and hates it. He sees the oppression, and He also sees the righteous, He sees the wicked, and He is is examining each of us.

Injustice needs to stop. It has to stop. Christians need to be outraged at injustice. Not just because we don’t like it, not simply because it’s been going on for too long, but because our righteous LORD loves justice. And because He loves justice, we should oppose anything that goes against what God loves.

Out of your love for God seek what He loves–justice.
Psalm 9: 7-9
⁷ But the Lord reigns forever,
executing judgment from his throne.
⁸ He will judge the world with justice
and rule the nations with fairness.
⁹ The Lord is a shelter for the oppressed,
a refuge in times of trouble.

Psalm 10:17-18 New Living Translation (NLT)

¹⁷ Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless.
Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.
¹⁸ You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed,
so mere people can no longer terrify them.

Mr. Clean – The Ultimate Cleaner

A big mistake people make is thinking they are too bad off to come to God. They believe they need to do some fixing up before they can come to God. Now, if you feel like you’re too bad off as is to come to God, how are you going to make yourself better before coming to Him? You are the problem, not the solution.

If we could “get right enough” before coming to God, He would have never needed to come in human form. It’s an unfortunate thought process that somehow we actually can get good enough. It’s sinful. Jesus came simply because we, in our imperfection could never be perfect enough, we could never fix up enough, or be anything that is close to worthiness of God’s Kingdom. That’s the point of it all! We could never get right on our own. We will never be able to clean ourselves up before we come to God because He is the ultimate cleaner! So, let Him do what He has a history of doing. Not just cleaning sins, but completely washing them away.

You can’t get right before coming to God because you get right by coming to God.

Good Men

It’s something that we don’t give enough credit for and if he’s truly trying to live a godly lifestyle he probably won’t take credit for it either, but a young man trying to live righteous deserves some recognition.

A young man trying to live a godly lifestyle faces a lot of stuff. He faces a lot of temptation, he faces a lot of stereotypes he has to beat, and he faces a lot that is just tough. He faces things that are tough for men, things that are tough for a person trying to live a godly style, and things that are tough in general.

He faces the stereotype of being a man and being assumed to have some type of hidden agenda, even though that may not be true. I think that a lot of times we accredit women with a tough struggle and we do struggle, but men face a struggle too, and I do believe a lot of times it’s overlooked.

If a man isn’t trying to sleep with you he must be gay. If he’s nice then obviously he wants something. It’s a lot of underlying things that good godly men have to deal with that aren’t right, but have become a part of the story society tells about men.

I don’t say it enough, and perhaps it’s because I don’t come across it often, but thank you good guys. There are some men who want to please God by the way they live, and there is a much needed example being set for us all by their choice.