I wish I could say I that I was a good person. But unfortunately this is not true. Now it is true that if I decide to compare myself to others, I find that if I choose the right people to compare myself to, I can make myself feel pretty good. I just have to make sure to pick comparison people who don’t make me feel bad.
But in reality, it doesn’t matter who I compare myself to… Because the only real standard is Jesus. And when I compare myself to Him, I always come up un-righteous.
But fortunately I don’t have to stay there.
God has made a change in me through Jesus, and He has brought me into His family. Now I’m one of the “called out ones.”
“The called out ones.” The word is plural. Believers, therefore, are placed in community with others for one reason: because God has called them out of their former ways of life. Everyone in the community is deeply sinful. Everyone is called by the same God. And everyone has been mercifully placed in community together. So why pretend we’re more than we are if everything is built on Jesus’ righteousness and not our own? Why the need to be fake? The gospel frees us to be authentic, to admit that our struggles and strengths have not been fully sanctified, and to allow others to apply the grace of God to areas of our lives that desperately need it. When community is honest and authentic, people begin to experience freedom from wearing a mask, because Jesus sets people free from the need to be hypocrites.
We all possess the same amount of righteousness — none.
The only righteousness any of us have is the righteousness God freely gives to us in Christ.
And it is because of that righteousness that I get to be a part of His family. The community we find in His family is one that brings freedom. I now have freedom and liberation to be myself. I am no longer forced to find people to whom I have to compare just so I can feel good about myself. Knowing that I have a righteousness before God through Jesus brings me an amazing sense of satisfaction and joy.
You can have that same joy, liberation, and satisfaction.
Seek out His righteousness and His community.
(How has your relationship with God given you a sense of freedom?)