Good News #293: As I Seek Jesus’ Righteousness and Not My Own, All His Blessing Shall Be Added in My Life!

A common mindset among us, christians, is we think that blessings come upon us if and when we do good — when we give to the less fortunate… when we serve in church… when we read our bibles religiously, etc. We think that these acts… these good works make us righteous… They don’t.

Now, to be clear… these are NOT bad works… these ARE good works and we should continue doing so… HOWEVER, it must be noted that these good works only produce self-righteousness — the same righteousness that Jesus referred to as that of the scribes and Pharisees when He said in Matthew 5:20:

“For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”

In here, Jesus is not teaching that the righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees is a righteousness that does more than what they do (praying in the temple, tithing, memorizing scriptures, etc.)… although Jesus was also not teaching not to do these things.

Jesus is simply teaching that all our good works only produce self-righteousness — a righteousness produced by our selves…

Jesus is teaching that there is a righteousness that exceeds self-righteousness, which is “His righteousness” — the righteousness that comes from Him as a gift (see Romans 5:17) — the righteousness of God Himself (see 2 Corinthians 5:21).

And in Matthew 6:33, Jesus is saying that if we focus on His righteousness (a gift made available to us by His death and we receive it) then all things get added to us…

Romans 8:32 rightly asks: He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

The gospel is this — His righteousness (The righteousness of God) is a Person — His Name is Jesus…
And God gave us Jesus..
And in the act of seeking Jesus… getting to know Jesus… focusing on Jesus… fixing our eyes on Jesus, all things get added to us.
By the way, the act of focusing on Jesus allows the Holy Spirit to transform us into His image (see 2 Corinthians 3:18)… one becomes righteous by beholding Him who is righteous.
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But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Matthew 6:33