The Mystery And The Majesty Of Righteousness
Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:20-31
Text “Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
He shall bring forth your Righteousness like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun”.
(Psalm 37: 5-6)
Scriptures of both the Old Testament and the New reveal an intimacy between the human quality of belief and the divine qualities of Righteousness. That, in itself, is part of a mystery. Belief is such a wavering emotion and subject to change. Righteousness is such a fixed and certain reality that the twain, belief, and Righteousness should never meet. Belief is temporal; Righteousness is eternal.
Still, belief is like the seedling that grows into a large plant that one day provides a home for the birds, as discussed in the Parable that Jesus told. (Matthew 13: 31-32).
That parable teaches that even the smallest amount of faith (belief) can significantly impact the world.
Furthermore, belief is the pulse-beat of Judaism and, subsequently, by association, Christianity.
Of Old Testament fame, Abraham earned Righteousness by believing God’s promises, and he became known as the father of many nations, thus underscoring the indispensable quality of belief.
( see Romans 4: 16 -25 )
But where did that ability to believe God’s promises come from?
Some people trace their belief in God to some arresting phenomenon in nature, like the magnificence of dawn or the crimson glow of the setting sun. At the same time, others attribute such belief to overwhelming psychophysical events such as the birth of a child or the death of a loved one.
But what if the initiative to believe is in the Creator’s hands? And therefore, belief is the recalling of prenatal experiences engraved upon the Spirit of each subject. And what if each of us were at Home with our Heavenly Father in that dwelling not made by human hands but eternal in Heaven”?
And what if the act of creating the human race is God’s intention for us to become His co-creators, whereby worldly deficits
are satisfied by people empowered and endowed by God with the required talents and wisdom to satisfy?
Is that not a reasonable explanation for Abraham’s inspiring faith?
Yet, there is more!
Interwoven throughout the Divine’s will to establish His kingdom on earth, God prepares the members of the human race to be His prodigy by the everlasting promise, “Certainly, I will be with you!”
Herein is the eternal pledge to maintain an expected relation with God and thereby fulfil the mission for which each one is born. Abraham’s undaunted insistence that God was intimately involved in his life reveals this life’s most precious reality. Here, the mystery between belief and Righteousness is displayed in the first verse of the Bible, ” In the beginning God.”
Righteousness is the flooding of the human Spirit with the fullness of God, initiated by His grace and includes the capacity to strengthen one’s belief.
As enlightening and grateful as we are for the moving account of Abraham’s faithful experience, We have an even more excellent demonstration of faith and Righteousness. The Eternal’s promise to be always with His chosen Kingdom Builders, is, since Abraham’s day, translated into flesh and has dwelt on earth among us.
“It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.” (1 Corinthians 1:30 NIV)
So it is today, amidst the cynic’s eager testimony, that religious institutions have outlived their usefulness and that we have failed in our mission. Then it is time for an encounter with your Righteousness.
Let Him show you again the reason You were sent here to earth. “And God sees you and the void waiting to be filled, and yet He concludes It is still a good match! ” And lo, I am with you always!
A Prayer To Follow This Meditation
Father, a holy hush falls over us as we search our vocabularies for words to talk to You about the mystery and the majesty of Your Righteousness. That’s because it is a subject more demonstrative of Heaven than of Earth. And to realize that You desire to share that unspeakable gift with us finite beings leaves us awestruck but silent.
At the time of our arrival at our new beginnings here on earth, we were like the tiny mustard seed which Jesus talked about. With Your loving and gentle touch, the smallest of seeds grows into a tree and a home for the songbirds, thus adding to the earth’s symphony of praise.
Righteousness is the mystery of You, our Heavenly Father, sharing Your fullness with us so that one day, we, too, may add to this world’s most beautiful symphony with the harmony of our lives. How precious to us is Your gracious word: “Beloved, now are we the children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as He is.” (1 John 3:2)
“. Praise God through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Hymn: Joy To The World
https://youtu.be/mRr8ei8u_XM?si=JA0F9SmkW5uequNS