And a
certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good,
save one, that is, God (Luke 18:18-19).
Aside being
a gift that we received, there’s more to righteousness. The righteousness of
God is also about the goodness of God—His equity. In our opening scripture,
Jesus was trying to explain to the rich young ruler about the “goodness” of
God, because goodness is about righteousness, rightness, or right judgment.
How can you
judge what’s right? How can you judge which way is right, and which way to go
in life? How do you differentiate what’s right from what’s wrong? How do you
distinguish what has glory from what has shame? How do you decide what’s of God
from what’s not of God? How do you determine that which is godly? That’s
righteousness!
What does it
mean to walk in the righteousness of God? For example, in judging issues and
situations, you’re not looking for who’s right or who’s wrong; you side-up with
His Word! You’re on one side—God’s side of righteousness. Your life becomes
beautiful, because you look at the world from the standpoint of God’s
righteousness, not man’s opinion.
Think about
living your life like that: Everybody is thinking in a certain way, seeing and
appraising things from the human perspective, but you’re seeing from, and with,
the eyes of God; that’s the beauty and power of righteousness. If you would
understand the righteousness of God, it would take away such base things as
envy, wrath, malice, anger etc.; all of such demeaning vices will be out of
your life, when you don’t see with the eyes of men, but with the eyes of God.
When you
consciously live this way, there’ll be an awesome force—a love-attraction in
your life that pulls people to you; there’s something about the righteousness
of God that captivates men. Recall that we said; it’s about His goodness; when
you function in righteousness, you become the epitome of God’s goodness: the
expression and representation of how good God is.
