How To Seek God's Righteousness

Matthew 6:33 "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you."

Here's where we start to pivot on the subject of righteousness. I want to start moving from the truth that you are righteous in Christ Jesus, to talking about the benefits of that righteousness. If you look at Matthew 6:33, you'll see the incredible blessings that come from attaining God's righteousness...everything that the world seeks after will simply be added to the righteous!

Righteousness brings results. In the same way that sin has consequences; righteousness has rewards! When you agree with God about your right-standing, then there are earthly rewards that you can expect now, in this lifetime.

Let me show you two passages of Scripture that prove this:
Proverbs 11:31 "If the righteous will be rewarded on the earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner."
Psalm 58:11 "So that men will say, 'Surely there is a reward for the righteous; Surely He is God who judges in the earth.'"
The righteousness you've been given isn't just going to bring you some future benefits in eternity. Obviously, the most significant benefit is an eternal life spent with the God who loves you. But righteousness is also designed to bring a reward to you now...in this lifetime!

At the risk of giving away the topic of future posts, let me inform you what these current benefits include: Anytime you see a blessing come on a righteous person in scripture - that blessing legally belongs to you, the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! If it weren't so, God could be accused of playing favorites. But because we've been given the same kind of right-standing with God by faith, then every Bible promise made to a righteous person is ours!

Every blessing on obedient behavior
Every time a good man was rewarded in the end
Every time a righteous person was delivered from trouble
It's all yours now!

In fact, whenever you see a "righteous/wicked" equation in the Bible (that is to say, "the righteous get X, the wicked can expect Y"), you can accurately place yourself on the righteous side of that equation...every time!

Seeking Righteousness...

To some, this idea still seems too good to be true. I can even guess that, even after five posts explaining your righteousness with God by faith...some of you may still have a problem always seeing yourself as a righteous person. You may ask, "Don't I still have to seek after the righteousness of God?"

Absolutely, you do! But how do you think you're going to do that?

How often have you read Matthew 6:33 - the opening passage of this post?
Do you - like most believers - still tend to read it this way? "Seek first the Kingdom of God, and make sure you're behaving righteously, and then all these things will be added to you.
Be honest with me...you read it that way, don't you?

Of course we all think that way! We still get caught up in the Law...changing all our promises to believe into rules to obey. Ministers across the country continue to teach it this way..."Seek God and His right way of doing things..."

This is not what Jesus was saying here!

You can't seek righteousness by what you do. If there's one theme of the New Covenant, this is it: Righteousness comes by faith.

So what does Jesus mean here when He says, "Seek His righteousness"?

This question is answered in the book of Romans, from chapter 9 through chapter 11, as Paul speaks of religious Jews who are looking to find righteousness through the Law. Read with me in chapter 9, verses 30-32:

"What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law." 

Listen to me...don't fall into the same trap as them. If you're still "seeking God's righteousness" by rules to follow, you will never find it! You couldn't earn this righteousness before you got saved, and you won't after you got saved. Obedience always comes from righteousness...it doesn't produce it.

So seeking first "the kingdom of God and His righteousness" is still not about obeying the rules - can we agree on that? So then, how do you seek after righteousness?

...By Faith

You knew we'd come back to this, didn't you?

The only working scriptural definition of "seeking righteousness" is doing it by faith. This means that the true seekers are those who believe that God has made them righteous; not those who are trying to live up to God's righteous standards.

Practically speaking, this is what seeking righteousness looks (and sounds) like:

"Lord, I believe Your Word. I believe that you took all of my sin and shame upon Yourself as You hung on the cross. I believe that I have been completely forgiven of every sin, and washed clean. I believe that You have made me righteous. By faith, I boldly declare Your word - I am a righteous person! 

"I don't care what I did yesterday - I've confessed it and it has been washed away.

"I don't care what other people say about me - their word isn't nearly as important as Yours.

"I don't even care how I feel at the moment - My feelings won't make Your Word more or less true.

"I believe and declare....I AM RIGHTEOUS! You made me this way, and I thank You for it!"

This is seeking righteousness by faith, not by works.

And according to Matthew 6:33 - when you do this, then all the blessings that the world is chasing after will be added to you. This is a righteousness that produces results.