Trusting Truth-40 Days of Psalm 37 (Day 6)

"He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun." Psalm 37:6

Yesterday was the first true "cliffhanger" of this blog. Though I'm being a bit sarcastic it was definitely a scripture that makes you wonder what God's response is when we "commit" our way to Him . Even more importantly is the question, 'WHAT is God going to give us, that we clearly need to let go of ourselves in order to get?'.

The answer is that he will change our appearance and our appeal to the world from the inside out. "He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn..." No matter how hard we try, we can never be righteous on our own. Sure, we can try and make ourselves better people, do good, say the right things, be nice to the right people, and keep from getting angry but we can never be God's equal when it comes to His righteousness and His goodness. Only when he takes us over (after he is allowed by our commitment to Him) is he able to shine through us.

We then read, "He will make...the justice of your cause like the noonday sun." We begin to see how much brighter TRUTH "shines" when we let God live through us. It is no longer our opinion that is shining out loud but instead His truth. When our desires (see Day 4) become His, He is then allowed to reveal His righteousness and justice through us. We must also remember that because we have submitted to Him, our "cause" is actually His cause. Taking on His causes should be no surprise when we picked that up back on Day 4 as we were delighting ourselves in Him. It all comes together and abandoning your "self" is the only way to get where God is willing to take you.

This scripture does beg another question though that needs to be discussed. We must note that because God's letter to us always leads to His ultimate plan, then why is making us "righteous" and "just" to the outside world of any importance? Aren't we citizens of His Kingdom? Aren't we "in the world but not of it"? Jesus answers the importance of our righteousness from God's perspective in Matthew 5:20 at the Sermon on the Mount when he says, "For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

We need to obtain God's righteousness because if we do not, Christ says that we are unable to enter His Kingdom. This isn't opinion, this is fact. If you have an issue with it, take it up with Jesus...He said it. Now, Jesus also makes something else very clear. He compares (actually contrasts) the righteousness needed to enter the Kingdom with the most "righteous" religious folk of the day. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were always so busy "doing" religion and "trying" to be righteous, they never let God take over their hearts so that they may indeed have His righteousness and justice shining through them. The Pharisees were amazing God "pleasers" but they were terrible God "trusters". As Oswald Chambers once said, "The good is always the enemy of the best" and these Pharisees and teachers of the law settled for the good they could produce themselves instead of committing their ways to Him and receiving His best in terms of righteousness, justice and goodness.

What are you doing today that you are not letting God into because it "seems" good enough to you? Let Him into your whole life and trust that His righteousness is the only righteousness that allows you to live in His Kingdom. Trust, Delight and Commit to the LORD and watch how God uses you to promote His truth. Let Go of trying to impress God and watch Himself press His love onto others through you as you Trust Him.