Meditations: Not Righteousness
...but growth in righteousness
About Meditations:
As I read from my lectionary and other daily readings, I make a habit of cherishing those truths that speak to my soul. I pray that these words reach your soul, too.
These meditations are a reflection on the content, not the positions and theology of the respective authors. I am not endorsing the views of the authors or the religious traditions they represent.
Living in this world as a Christian is frustrating. I wrestle with the contradictions of life and faith in my life.
I should want to read my Bible in the morning. But I snooze my alarm.
I shouldn’t have dropped that profanity when talking about the KC Chiefs with the guys. But I did.
I should want to pray. But I’m too tired.
I shouldn’t want to waste my entire evening watching Reels. But I don’t feel like doing anything else.
And on, and on, and on ….
Does this sound familiar?
You are not alone.
But (this is a big but) God does not expect you to be awesome every day. He saved us while we were destined for wrath. He saved us knowing that we will have moments of failure, apathy, and blatant rebellion.1
Yet God is faithful. He gives us more grace (James 4:6).
Paul understood that believers will struggle in sin and contradictions in their daily lives. Therefore, he wrote to believers in first-century Philippi, to encourage them that they could be confident, “that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).
Yet he doesn’t stop there. He writes his pray for these believers (while he is in prison):
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. (vv. 9-11).
Let this be your prayer, too. Replace the “you” with “I” and say it aloud:
And this is my prayer: that my love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that I may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.
Finally, consider Martin Luther’s words about Christian righteousness:
[The Christian life] is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness,
not health, but healing
not being, but becoming
not rest, but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not yet finished,
but it is going on.
This is not the end, but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory,
but all is being purified.
If you claim to be a Christ-follower, you will not be perfectly righteous until you stand before Christ in heaven.
Until then, we are in a process. We are becoming. We strive to be like Christ.
The question is: are you still on the Road?
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful (Col. 3:15).
Check out Ephesians 2:1-10:
2 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.