GRACE GRENADE #2 God is not more righteous than me

The truth is, if you are in Christ, then God is not more righteous than you and you are not more righteous than God. The reason why is because you both have the SAME righteousness, which is God’s righteousness.

When you believe in Christ God gives you His very own righteousness. In fact, when you were born again you were made of the very same righteousness as God. If this is true, which we’ll see from scripture it is, then it proves that God cannot be more righteous than us because God cannot be more righteous than Himself. If God and us have the same righteousness then we can’t be more righteous than God and God can’t be more righteous than us!

All we had to do to receive the righteousness of God was believe. That’s it. You can’t achieve it. If you are trying to achieve it then you are still relying on your own righteousness to save you. Well that’s no righteousness at all. The Bible says that there is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:11 ). The Bible also says that no one can be made righteous by their works (Romans 3:19). If you are still trying to earn righteousness, it means you haven’t received God’s righteousness. This means you are still standing in your own righteousness, which is imperfect righteousness. Is that how you want to stand before God?

Now, if you didn’t do anything to make yourself righteous, then there is nothing you can do to make yourself unrighteous! That’s the point of a true gift. It’s not earned or taken away based on your behaviour. His gift is perfect and complete and lasts forever! God hasn’t made us perfectly righteous only until our next sin, He’s made us perfect forever!

Our righteousness is like a big solid bullion of gold. Now you could drop that bullion in the mud and it could get some dirt on it but if you were to cut that bullion in half and look inside you would still find solid gold! We might fall and sin and get some dirt on us as children of God but guess what? On the inside we are still the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! Our righteousness is not based on our behaviour thank God, it’s based on the perfect righteousness of God that we receive as a gift through faith in Jesus!

All this doesn’t make us want to run out and sin. Perhaps if you’re not born again it might. But actually, understanding true righteousness as a gift fills us with love for God, boldness of faith and an awareness of His victory and dominion in us. This doesn’t make us want to run out and sin, it makes us want to reign in life!

There are so many New Covenant scriptures that reveal all of this. We just need eyes to see and ears to hear:

“But now THE righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ FOR ALL WHO BELIEVE. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a GIFT, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,”

-ROMANS 3:21-24

“…and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, THE RIGHTEOUSNESS FROM GOD THAT DEPENDS ON FAITH”

-PHILIPPIANS 3:9

“Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

-ROMANS 10:1-4

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become THE righteousness of God.”

-2 CORINTHIANS 5:21

“And by his one perfect sacrifice he made us perfectly holy and complete for all time!”

-HEBREWS 10:14

“and to put on the NEW SELF, created after the likeness of God in TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS and holiness.”

-EPHESIANS 4:24

“For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who RECEIVE God’s abundant provision of grace and of the GIFT of righteousness REIGN in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”

-ROMANS 5:17

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

-EPHESIANS 2:8-9