Wednesday's Word - Looks Like Reign

Hello All,

Okay, the word for the day is righteousness. No, I don't have a funny anecdote. I don't have a question. I'm not trying to be purposefully humorous. This one is really about putting something on your mind that you will chew for the next few days. Righteousness is a serious matter for the Christian. And one of the first and most important things we must realize is that, although we can not produce it in ourselves, we must follow hard after it. Now righteousness is not simply a slow-speaking ultra-peaceful presence like we think of when we see Gandhi or somebody. Its not having some "Confucius -esque" type of gibberistic "simple yet profound wisdom" that makes you seem like you're one with the universe. I'm sure that many of us can substantiate several words or concepts as a good definition for righteousness. But for today, I'm going to share what it is and how to get it as put forth in a small portion of Scripture - Righteousness is blameless-ness Philippians 3:6 (even though Paul is referring to the Law, the definition is appropriate). We don't receive our righteousness for keeping the Law perfectly. We can't - We receive our righteousness according to Philippians 3:9(b) through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

If you've ever seen the movie 'Saving Private Ryan', there's a part near the end where Tom Hanks character says to Pvt Ryan in regards to the all of the hardship endured by the unit sent to retrieve him, "Earn this." Now there is no way that we can ever EARN THIS. But we are supposed to be very diligent about showing appreciation in that we realize that it cost our Savior greatly for something He gives to us freely.

Here's the Word
Romans 5:21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Timothy, we see that one of the main purposes for the Bible in the life of a Christian is training in righteousness. We also see that righteousness travels with a few usual suspects: godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness, peace and charity (almost sounds like the Fruit of the Spirit eh?) Not in a judgmental kinda way, but with all this evidence of appreciation available to the life of a Christian, I can't imagine there really being any question as to whether they're allowing grace to reign. When you look at their life on the whole.....it looks like reign.

In Him,
Cros