Passage Read: Romans 4-5
Meditation Verses: 4:23-25
Thought
The righteousness that saves and assures a believe of salvation is an absolute gift given to those who believe and trust in Jesus' death as payment for our sins and in His resurrection, which justifies us before God. Salvation is not a gift to those who obey the Law, as if they had made themselves righteous and worthy of eternal life, because no one keeps the Law perfectly. No one but Jesus Christ is able to stand before God and claim the right of eternal life on the basis of his perfect obedience to the Law. Anyone who tries will be confronted with their failures. But the one who comes in humility to the Lord and in awe of His incredible kindness to provide a sacrifice that covers all their sin, and claims that sacrifice as payment for their own sins will find mercy and be granted a righteousness they never could have attained on their own. Paul speaks as if in accounting terms: righteousness is credited to the believer; his heavenly account is suddenly filled to the full with righteousness. All because he looked at his own inability to fill the account and stopped trying to justify himself by his own efforts, and instead turned to the One who would gladly gift his account with full payment. And he rejoiced. And he loved the One who declared him righteous. And he desired to please and honor that One with all his remaining days by following Him and learning from Him to do whatever pleased Him.
Application
Being declared righteous is the only way to truly stand before God righteous. If I depend on my own efforts, they will be sorely lacking. But if I trust fully in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, I am counted perfectly righteous and without any lack before the Lord. Though His goodness to me prompts me to do all I can to honor and bless Him by my deeds, those efforts do not supersede or even add to my gifted righteousness, but flow out of it. As Paul says elsewhere, I have not merely been declared righteous, but I have been made righteous, and in living in that new nature, I will do what is righteous--because God made me righteous through Jesus' death and resurrection. Righteous behavior flows from the righteousness imparted by God. Righteous behavior does not make me righteous or earn me righteousness, but follows from having already been made righteous.