Thoughts on righteousness

“...Vindicate me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and my integrity that is in me.” Psalm 7:8

“The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands He has recompensed me, for I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His ordinances were before me, and I did not put away His statutes from me.” Psalm 18:20-22

“Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.” Psalm 26:1

I have always read statements like this that David makes in the Psalms and thought, “I will never be there. I mess up all the time. I am nowhere near righteous.” I really kind of thought, other than having an affair and getting the woman's husband killed, that David must have been perfect. After all, he was a man's after God's own heart, so he must have been darn near perfect, right?

I've had a new thought about this lately, though. What if, like me, David had a flesh to deal with? What if he had struggles and bad attitudes and sometimes believed lies? What if, when he was writing these statements, he wasn't walking by sight, but by faith? What if David looked forward to the sacrifice of the coming Messiah, and believed that God made him righteous?

“Remember, O Lord, Your compassion and Your lovingkindnesses, for they have been from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to Your lovingkindness remember me, for Your goodness' sake, O Lord. Good and upright is the Lord; therefore He instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in justice, and He teaches the humble His way.” Psalm 25:6-9

“For Your lovingkindness is before my eyes, and I have walked in Your truth.” Psalm 26:3

David was not perfect. But he knew God. He knew of God's compassion and lovingkindness. He knew it and He believed God. And guess what? Just like Abraham, he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

So, if David wasn't perfect, and he made such statements as “the Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,” what am I to say and believe about myself? What are you to believe about yourself? When we say, “I will never be good enough to be considered righteous,” what are we saying about God? What are we saying about the blood of Christ? That it wasn't quite enough? I'll confess, I have often thought, “Okay, I know God sees me as righteous before Him because of Jesus' sacrifice and because I am covered in the blood, but I know better. God can think I'm righteous, but I see myself and it's just not true.” God is not wearing some kind of rose-colored glasses. The way God sees me is true.

We, as born-again sons and daughters of God, must choose to believe God. We must choose to agree with Him in all things. Let's believe that God can do the impossible (and already has!). He has made us righteous.

“But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven,
And whose sins have been covered. “Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.” Romans 4:5-8

I believe that in David's life there was a great working out of righteousness. When we choose to grab hold of the truth that we are already seen as righteous in God's eyes, He is then able to bear the fruit of righteous living through us. I want it to be the other way around. I'll believe I'm righteous once I see it in my life. But that's not the way it works, is it? We walk by faith and not by sight.

Cain's offering

I realized anew this week how much I need to read scripture, not for legalistic reasons or because it will make God happy with me or make me a better person, but because when I neglect it, I am easily deceived into believing lies about God, myself, and others.  So, I decided to start at the beginning.  I got a little bit stuck on Genesis 4, the story of Cain and Abel.

"So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.  Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions, and the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.  So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.  Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?  If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?  And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.' " Genesis 4:3-7

I don't fully understand this, but something I'm seeing is that Cain either didn't know or didn't care what the Lord wanted.  God required a blood sacrifice for sin.  Abel knew this.  It seems to me that if Cain did not know why his offering was not accepted, he could have just asked.  And if he did know, he clearly didn't care.  He seems to have no regard for what God is after, what He wants. 

I am asking the Lord to show me what He wants so I don't keep on making offerings that are of no account to God.   I want to be after what He's after.  I want to give Him what He wants, not just give what I want to give.