all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, [2 timothy 3:16]
in high school i had a friend – grandpa ed we called him. because even though he was 17 years old like the rest of us, if you met him you would have assumed he was 70. he wore sweater vests and tucked in button up shirts with khakis every day. he wore wire rimmed glasses and carried a pocket watch. he listened to frank sinatra on vinyl. and, he bowled. man could he bowl. he bowled multiple 300 games with his left hand. and he’s a natural righty. and through high school and college ed taught everyone in our friend group how to bowl. he gave us shoes, our own balls, free games at the bowling alley he worked at – grandpa ed was the source of all things bowling. if you or anyone ever wanted to know something about bowling, or be trained how to bowl, grandpa ed was your guy. he was the standard as far as i was concerned and i wouldn’t go anywhere else for my bowling information. and you can probably guess where this analogy is going already…
where are you going for your training in righteousness? we have the breathed out word of God – the one who is the definition of righteous – available to us. and yet i think we pick it apart and supplement it with culture and personal opinion and sometimes even fear. but we have the source of righteousness accessible to us at all times! in sin we say it isn’t enough or isn’t what we wanted to hear. and so we find another source to define righteousness for us. maybe it’s the popular outlook on some political issue based on what your social media feed says. or maybe scripture’s definition of righteousness contradicts the thing that you selfishly want to pursue with your time and money. whatever it is, we try to redefine righteousness using all of these outside sources instead of the word of God, given to us so that we might know what righteousness is.
God did not leave us on our own to figure out under our own power, or all of these outside sources how to piece together what if looks like to live a righteous life. he knows we are not capable of that apart from him. in fact God not only gave us his written word, but he gave us the word made flesh – his son Jesus – so that we could know and become righteousness.
so today, be reminded of the loving father that longs to be in relationship with you so much that he gave his son in order to make it so. and he gave us his breathed out word so that we would know who he is.
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]
~ keith kozlowski