Righteousness

DEVOTION

ROMANS

RIGHTEOUSNESS

Rom 1:16-17

16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."
NIV

How much better can it be said? The only power there ever was, and ever will be to ensure an individual’s salvation is from God. As much effort as man puts forth to advance himself, he cannot save himself from eternal death. As much as most, if not all, believers agree with this concept, a more deceptive plot is at foot, a plot deployed by the very root of evil himself. This is the idea I can have a certain righteousness of my own, which is to say, I can achieve a life without sin. This Gospel Paul talks about here is righteousness from God, Jesus Christ is that righteousness, he and he alone is all and the only righteousness I will need and will ever have. If I think for one moment I have any righteousness of my own, I am deceived and I call God a liar. When I start saying to myself I am completely free of sin, claiming perfection, a perfection which only Christ was and is, the perfect Lamb without blemish, a perfect sacrifice for my sins. If I claim any form of perfection or righteousness, Christ need not to have gone to the cross for me, for my perfection, my righteousness has gained me the right to eternal life. I have saved my own self. Now just doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Because it is!
Jesus told this parable regarding just this kind of thinking:
Luke 18:9-14
9 To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10 "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.'
13 "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
14 "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
NIV
It is my faith in Christ which gives me righteousness, by faith and faith alone am I saved and by faith and faith alone I live.