Day 5: Righteousness It's Day 5, super late. But, we’re here. So let’s get right into it.INSTRUCTIONS:1. First things first, let's pray before we start:pray out loud for today's devotional2. Now that we've prayed, let us read the Word:Matthew 5:21-24Psalms 24Matthew 6:333. Let's get into today's discussion Today's Devotional:If I never thought pursuing righteousness was hard, I now definitely do. The idea was to record and work through today’s devotional at 15:00 so that it could be live at 16:00. It is currently 20:29 as I begin to type this. From spending an hour awaiting a transaction that was only meant to take mere minutes. The rest of the day just spiralled from there. But isn’t that how life goes? We start off planning to lead a life of “righteousness”. We want to do the right thing, be good people. Obey God. Live right. We plan it all out. But life doesn’t always cooperate with us and the plans we have. Paul says, what we want to do isn’t what we actually do. Instead, we do that which we really wish not to do. We get out of course more times than not. Things don’t always go according to our plans. But alas, God knew that we couldn’t do it by ourselves. Even after giving us the opportunity to choose right, we failed. From the very beginning of time, and probably until the end of time, we fail. We fail even when we mean to do right. That is why God didn’t make us have to earn our own righteousness. He didn’t make us have to work for it either. That is why He sent His only Son to save us. The Bible says, in 1 Corinthians 5:21 that, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him”. In an article on www.thestandard.co.zw in 2019, a writer stated that:“A layman's definition of righteousness is simply, right standing with God. Righteousness is the condition of being in a right relationship with the Lord. This can only happen through total faith and dependence upon Christ.”So, no matter how much we try, we cannot make ourselves righteous. But, this isn’t a licence to sin and sin more abundantly. It is actually the opposite. It is the ultimate gift of love- an invitation to an eternal love relationship. That is why Jesus said, in the book of John, that loving Him is shown through obeying His commandments. He actually finds obedience to be so important that He says it is more important and better than sacrifice. Let me try to break it down.God created everything and planned how everything should go in His perfect will.He then decided to create people, in His image. Not only did He give them wisdom to make decisions, grow and multiply- He also gave them (read us) free will. Now, God had a plan for what these people and all things in nature should do for all things to remain in their perfect state. But He also had foreknowledge of all that would, in fact and possibly, happen.God made a plan to save us. First He sent Jesus then gave us the Holy Spirit and The Bible, to help us navigate through life. He then told us to obey Him at all costs, because that is the only way He could help us steer away from trouble. So, you see, the only contribution we can make to the pursuit of righteousness is to follow God’s loving guidance. Not to earn right standing, but to actually save our lives. You’ll agree with me that it would hurt your heart if you had to watch someone you love fall into a life-threatening trap. God doesn’t want to see us parish- that is why He offers us help and guidance throughout our life journey. So, what’s my point: The only way to seek God’s righteousness (and live it out) is to accept God’s help to walk in obedience to His word. And it is then when we can boldly walk into his presence. Like the priests did in the olden days. And that, however, is a topic for a whole other devotion.