Faithful on Fridays Blog

Sometimes people think its arrogant to call yourself righteous but the truth is our righteousness isn’t what we’ve done right but what Jesus did right for us. Jeremiah prophesied of the Messiah, the Righteous Branch who will reign as king executing righteousness: His name is The LORD our Righteousness (23:5-7).

Righteousness is that wonderful truth that Jesus, God in the flesh, descended into our world for one reason: to die in our place. Not just a natural death but a death that fulfilled all of the Father’s requirements to rescue mankind from sin. His blood was offered in place of ours, the Great Exchange, and now we stand before God as His righteous ones. 

For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 

Believers have been forgiven and can audaciously, fearlessly, stand before God in faith and walk in victory: mashal. Proverbs’ chapters 10-12 convincingly states that truth with promises to accompany it.

Chapter Ten emphasizes this truth of righteousness 14 times, Chapter Eleven 13 times, and Chapter Twelve 9 times for the purpose of growing our faith. Our righteousness qualifies us for:

• Rescue or deliverance from death, hunger, spiritual captivity, trouble, removal, and escape from harm for ourselves and our offspring.
• There are blessings of righteousness is on our thoughts, memory, desires, hope, walk with God, and life ending only in good.
• Wherever we live we bring joy to that city, it’s exalted by our righteousness, we guide our neighbors, and on this earth we have a sure reward. 
• Words coming from our mouth, tongue, and lips bring fountains of life, they’re compared to fine silver feeding many with wisdom and insight.
• The righteous in Christ flourish like green leaves and bears fruit like a tree of life.

During this tumultuous time in our nation go back to these Lessons from Proverbs and be encouraged; He wants only good for you and your family.

Notice in these chapters there’s usually a ‘but’ connected to the promise. This intensifies the meaning as you compare the consequences of the wicked to the righteous. Jesus’ parables/proverbs followed the same pattern; consider His declarations.

“That is the way it will be at the end of the world. The angels will come and separate the wicked people from the righteous,” Matthew 13:49 

Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!” Matthew 13:43 

“And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life.”

Matthew 25:46

Let’s never forget that God is Just and there’s a penalty for sin: death, it’s either yours or His. Let’s choose to live victoriously in these promises since we qualify as sinners for Jesus’ free gift of righteousness and reign in life through This One Man, Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:15-17). Mashal.