The Race to Righteousness

“The Race to Righteousness”- Romans 9:6-8, 9:30-33, and 10:1-5

Have you ever heard the term “grandfather clause?”  I was recently at a store asking about certain services I had, as part of my plan, there was a grandfather clause on it that stipulated that certain fees did not apply to my account because I came in before the fees went into effect.  I was saved of the fees because I was in before the company started charging for certain services.  When it comes to our eternal salvation, we find no grandfather clause; our heritage, parentage, culture, race, deeds, or anything human will not bring us into salvation.  We cannot depend on our merit, instead we must ask Christ to take over as our Lord and savior, only then are we grafted into the body of Christ. 

God shows tremendous grace, beginning with the biggest example of grace: Jesus Christ.  He loves us so much that He sent his son to die for us that we may be with the Father for all eternity if we choose to call Him savior, but even within this grace, we find that there are some distinctions to be made between what we believe we know in our human minds and those of the Lord’s.  One of those distinctions we need to make as believers, can be found between zeal and knowledge.  Paul speaks of this in Romans 10:2 when he says, “for I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”  He is saying we should have both passion AND knowledge because we find ourselves short if we chose one over the other; one cannot have knowledge without passion, and passion cannot stand without increasing knowledge.  In essence, our zeal for God must be based upon our knowledge of the Gospel.

One other big distinction that we must keep in mind is that found between God’s view of righteousness and that of man’s view of righteousness.  Paul says in Romans 10:3-4 that, “for, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.  For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”  Man believes that it is by his own hand that justification can be attained, but our justification is free and NOT based on our own actions.  When Christ came, He upended what was believed to be righteous.  We, believers, are not the people we once were, and when we take Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, He begins to show us what His righteousness looks like, so you need only open your heart and ears to hear what He says, and your life will begin to see everything through the Cross of Christ because it is in Him that we find righteousness!