And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? none is good, save one, that is, God (Luke 18:18-19).
Aside being a gift that we received, there’s more to righteousness. The righteousness of God is also about the goodness of God—His equity. In our opening scripture, Jesus was trying to explain to the rich young ruler about the “goodness” of God, because goodness is about righteousness, rightness, or right judgment.
How can you judge what’s right? How can you judge which way is right, and which way to go in life? How do you differentiate what’s right from what’s wrong? How do you distinguish what has glory from what has shame? How do you decide what’s of God from what’s not of God? How do you determine that which is godly? That’s righteousness!
What does it mean to walk in the righteousness of God? For example, in judging issues and situations, you’re not looking for who’s right or who’s wrong; you side-up with His Word! You’re on one side—God’s side of righteousness. Your life becomes beautiful, because you look at the world from the standpoint of God’s righteousness, not man’s opinion.
Think about living your life like that: Everybody is thinking in a certain way, seeing and appraising things from the human perspective, but you’re seeing from, and with, the eyes of God; that’s the beauty and power of righteousness. If you would understand the righteousness of God, it would take away such base things as envy, wrath, malice, anger etc.; all of such demeaning vices will be out of your life, when you don’t see with the eyes of men, but with the eyes of God.
When you consciously live this way, there’ll be an awesome force—a love-attraction in your life that pulls people to you; there’s something about the righteousness of God that captivates men. Recall that we said; it’s about His goodness; when you function in righteousness, you become the epitome of God’s goodness: the expression and representation of how good God is.
