THURSDAY 14th
Psalm 5
NIV (v12) – ‘Surely, LORD, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favour as with a shield.’
ESV (v12) – ‘For you bless the righteous, O LORD; you cover him with favour as with a shield.’
I have chosen to take verse 12 today from this chapter because in a sense it continues from our theme yesterday where we considered those who the LORD considered as being godly (recap 4:3 ‘But know that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself . . .’) In the verse before us today we see that the ‘godly’ in Psalm 4 are referred to as the ‘righteous’ in Psalm 5 ‘. . . you bless the righteous . . .’ This reaffirms that to be set apart or considered in the group of the godly, one needs to be righteous. But what is meant by righteous? How can one become righteous? It is almost too big a subject for one devotion, but we will consider it briefly.
To be righteous means to have a right standing that leads to right behaviour, in the context of Christianity it means therefore to be in a right place or position before God, it means to be found with a right standing before God. But how can this be achieved. It can only be found in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, for in the New Testament we find that our righteousness, our standing before God comes through what Jesus has done for us in going to Calvary and being raised from the dead.
Any righteousness we may feel that we have apart from the Cross is as filthy rags in the eyes of God, (Isaiah 64:6) it is self-righteousness, that is our own attempts to become holy or godly, it could be good works we are performing, it could even be living honest and upright lives, good and right things and yet without the inclusion of what the Lord Jesus has done on our behalf they will achieve nothing in regard to bringing us into a right standing before God and an eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the book of Hebrews 11 we have the catalogue of the ‘Heroes of faith’ many times we read ‘by faith’ and this is also the clue as to how we become or are made righteous, it is ‘by faith’ in the full and complete work of Christ in his redemptive act at Calvary, it is a total belief in that going to Calvary, Jesus went on our behalf as our representative to pay the full price for our sin, to receive the full punishment for it and to take the penalty for it on our place, he has done everything that is necessary on our behalf to give to us a right standing before God and all we have to do is to believe and accept by faith. It is believing that when we come to the Cross in repentance and acceptance that Jesus takes from off us our own filthy rags of (self) righteousness and gives to us (or imputes ) his righteousness, that is he washes us, cleanses us through his shed blood and makes us new and gives us a new and a right standing before God. We are made righteousness. ‘For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.’ 2 Corinthians 5:21 ‘For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”’ Romans 1:17 ‘But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.’ Romans 3:21–28
Our doing therefore must not be an attempt to obtain righteousness, our doing is our outward obedience or response because we have been made righteous through the redeeming work of the Cross.
And David says, ‘For you bless the righteous, O LORD . . .’ In a later Psalm we read ‘Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.’ (32:1-2) In other words, blessed is the one to whom the righteousness of Christ has been imputed! To be in the place of true blessedness we need to come to the one who clothes us with his righteousness, the one who welcomes us with arms wide open at Calvary.
In Ephesians 1:3 Paul says, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places . . .’ He blesses the righteous, that is the ones who have been made anew through Christ by the Spirit of God.
We cannot make ourselves righteous, but we can hunger and thirst after righteousness and when we do, we will be satisfied. (Matthew 5:6) For our righteousness comes from the one who is both the living bread and water of life, it is he alone who we hunger for and he alone who we thirst after.