[Read the text for the day in Romans 3:21-31.]
Just between you and me, I could never understand how smart people could be arrogant about their IQs. First, it adds not a whit to a person's value. Moreover, intelligence is completely an inherited trait, and we have nothing to do with the genes that were given to us. We could say the same thing about looks: how can one be haughty about his or her natural appearance? We had nothing to do with the DNA passed on to us at conception. If anything, boasting about beauty or bragging over brains betrays a paucity of understanding.
You know what? The same can be said of righteousness. Only God is righteous by nature, and we share in this trait solely through inheritance. For when we are born from above by the Spirit of Christ, we receive righteousness not as though attained through our merit, but passed along through God’s grace. We enter into the presence of the Holy God because Christ, His Son, lives now in us.
So Paul rhetorically asks, “Where, then is boasting?” Hastening to reply, he answers, “It is excluded.” There is no basis for it. How can there be? If anything, we are humbled at receiving as a gift something we could not generate ourselves.
This is a good thing to know and embrace, for it aligns us with truth and frees us from pre-occupation with self. Made completely righteous in Christ, we are no longer burdened by an impossible task, but free instead to love God and to serve Him. And we celebrate forever this precious gift: righteousness, a right standing before God because of Christ, the righteous One in whom we live, even as He lives in us.
By the way, if you don’t mind me saying so, how wise of you to trust in Christ! His righteousness looks good on you.
Just between you and me, I could never understand how smart people could be arrogant about their IQs. First, it adds not a whit to a person's value. Moreover, intelligence is completely an inherited trait, and we have nothing to do with the genes that were given to us. We could say the same thing about looks: how can one be haughty about his or her natural appearance? We had nothing to do with the DNA passed on to us at conception. If anything, boasting about beauty or bragging over brains betrays a paucity of understanding.
You know what? The same can be said of righteousness. Only God is righteous by nature, and we share in this trait solely through inheritance. For when we are born from above by the Spirit of Christ, we receive righteousness not as though attained through our merit, but passed along through God’s grace. We enter into the presence of the Holy God because Christ, His Son, lives now in us.
So Paul rhetorically asks, “Where, then is boasting?” Hastening to reply, he answers, “It is excluded.” There is no basis for it. How can there be? If anything, we are humbled at receiving as a gift something we could not generate ourselves.
This is a good thing to know and embrace, for it aligns us with truth and frees us from pre-occupation with self. Made completely righteous in Christ, we are no longer burdened by an impossible task, but free instead to love God and to serve Him. And we celebrate forever this precious gift: righteousness, a right standing before God because of Christ, the righteous One in whom we live, even as He lives in us.
By the way, if you don’t mind me saying so, how wise of you to trust in Christ! His righteousness looks good on you.
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