Seek ye first the kingdom, and His Righteousness

It’s been a while since I posted here, mainly because things of the Spirit have been somewhat at a premium of late, and fairly unavailable. But I’m back, after a long hiatus, and I’ve got some things to say about righteousness. I have just managed to sit back and look at one or two of the Christianity Today mailings that have been steadily building up in my inbox while I work slavishly away at a job that certainly does not invite a righteous heart. One that caught my attention was here.
The single word righteous in the context of Joseph’s life that the author looks at here caught my attention. An obedience to the will of the Father, the faith in the coming Messiah, and a redefinition of righteousness begs several questions. Firstly, we have to ask ourselves what it is to be righteous in our own lives. Does it mean indignant, arrogant and unloving, as in ‘oh, the self-righteous prig’, or does it mean one who is within the law, or does it mean one who is a believer on the Lord’s command? Also, we have to think about Abraham, who in Genesis 15 is declared a righteous man (see here) and the echoes of that declaration throughout the Word in the New Testament. Romans, Galatians, and most interestingly James 2. In thinking about this passage, I begin to see some interesting roots for my self-righteous prig of a slight bit previous in this entry. Take some time to read this passage carefully. James condemns a rightousness that is of man here, the righteousness of self-glorification and selfish adulation. As I meditate a bit further on James, I begin to see some power emerging from verse 12. “Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom”. It seems conceivable, then, that righteousness comes from obedience more than anything, from belief in the grace of that obedience. Ortberg indicates that Joseph had lost his status in the eyes of man by becoming righteous for the Lord. I’m not sure if this is entirely valid, but it certainly draws one towards the thought that true righteousness is in deeds, as James indicates, and in faith, as Abraham demonstrates, but most importantly is in the midst of obedience to Christ’s life, through which both faith and deeds are combined. How new is Ortberg’s definition of righteousness? I don’t know. Seems, actually, that it’s a fairly old one. Talk to you soon.