Jesus said that your righteousness has to surpass that of the super-religious folks, or you can’t even enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoa. My righteousness has to surpass those guys? The super-religious folks?! We’ve all seen these people, right? They have it all together. They say all the right things. They read the right Bible. They listen to the right music. They vote for the right people. They don’t slip up, like ever. Their houses are always clean. Their hairdos are always in place. They smile all the dang time and they’re never, ever having a hard time like the rest of us. Wow. I don’t have any of that stuff figured out! I can’t match that - so how in the world am I supposed to surpass it?! Well, here’s the deal: All those things that the super-religious people have all figured out don’t actually have anything to do with righteousness. The truth is, those folks are trying really, really hard to make their own righteousness, but it’s just not working. Righteousness is a big, fancy word that simply means this: God and I are on good terms. We’re alright. God and I are cool. The problem is, no one can do that on their own. We can’t make ourselves okay with God. The only way we can be righteous is for God to just give us righteousness as a gift. The good news is that Jesus died for us and rose from the grave to give us that gift. You don’t have to have it all together. You don’t have to earn this gift. You don’t have to make it. All you have to do is open up your heart and take it.
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