Righteous Character

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.

Proverbs 4:18

The Book of Proverbs reinforces characteristics not only important to God, but important to lead a healthy, productive, and joy-filled life. The Book of Proverbs has a lot to say about righteousness. The memory of the righteous will be a blessing (Proverbs 10:7). So how are we righteous?

If you have Christ living in you, you are righteous. God, in His grace, looks on us as though we have never sinned because of what Jesus did for us. Jesus bore our sin, past, present, and future when he suffered and died for us on the cross. He made us righteous.

So . . . we know that we already are righteous, and we also know that God loves righteousness. What do we do now? We bring glory to God by loving righteousness as well. Dictionary.com defines righteous as acting in an upright, moral way; virtuous.

God clearly loves this kind of character. A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies (Proverbs 31:10). Not only does this glorify God, but it also keeps you out of a lot of trouble!

We had a conversation with our son about punishment recently. We explained to him that consequences and punishment were teaching him lessons that would help him grow up to be a healthy adult. We love him so much that we want him to learn these truths when he is young.

Living a moral, upright life is not just because God says so, this type of life also helps us steer clear of painful consequences. Does this mean that bad things don’t happen to good people? Absolutely not. We live in a fallen world in which evil will surely cross our paths. But if I can walk through this life with the character that God loves, I’m sure going to try.

Father, I pray that my life can bring you glory as I live out the righteousness that comes from you.

Julie