“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6

Righteousness -- integrity, virtue, purity of life, rightness, correctness of thinking, feeling, and acting; the state of him who is as he ought to be, righteousness, the condition acceptable to God.

You and I CANNOT be righteous separate and apart from Jesus Christ. Regardless of how hard I try I cannot earn, work for, nor be righteous on my own. It’s simply impossible. Regardless of what good friends, well-meaning friends, ministers, elders, deacons, husbands, wives, sisters, relatives or friends of any kind tell you, you cannot nor ever will be righteous on your own. When you strive for your own righteousness you will fail every time.

Look just at these three scriptures out of many that state Jesus is our righteousness.

Galatians 2:21 – “I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

2 Corinthians 5:21 – “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

Philippians 3:9 – “and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.”

Paul hit the nail on the head when he says in Philippians 3:6, “as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.”

Did you see the word Paul used for the type of righteousness man thinks he can work for? He uses the word legalistic. A legalist is so bound by the law that he thinks the harder he works and the more perfect he becomes, the more righteous he will be. And my sisters, this is the gospel of ulcers, guilt, headaches, high blood pressure and depression.

Depression often symbolizes that you are holding on to an unattainable goal. And my sisters, righteousness apart from Christ is an unattainable goal. Before I knew better, I suffered from perfectionism. I thought I had to be perfect and was impatient with anyone who wasn’t, especially my children. And then I LEARNED that perfection is not a goal, it is a disorder. To think that I can be perfect on my own is Satan’s deception. Striving for perfection, separate and apart from Jesus Christ, creates guilt and stagnates true growth in Christ. Instead of walking by faith I am walking by sight and trying to attain the unattainable. And I am miserable and constantly depressed.

We have been REDEEMED – bought back.

We have been SAVED – rescued.

We have been SANCTIFIED -- set apart.

We have been JUSTIFIED – declared righteous.

And all of this because of Jesus.

And we are blessed.

We come before God empty, poor in spirit. We mourn over our sin and gain comfort. We are meek, deserving nothing or demanding anything, yet inherit the earth. Coming to God just as we are, we hunger and thirst for what we do not have -- righteousness. And we find it in Christ. Therefore, he can fill our emptiness with himself.
The righteousness we hunger and thirst for is not our own but Christ’s. He has it all; I have none. And there is a huge difference. One says, “I can do this; I can do this; I can do this” and can’t. The other has faith that Christ can and already has.” His is the righteousness we seek.

part two