Righteousness Is In Who, Not What

filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God (Philippians 1:11 NKJV).

The fruit of righteousness comes through Jesus.  We cannot manufacture it or produce it without Him.  That’s why He told the disciples, us included:

"Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5 NLT)

The interesting aspect of the thought in John 15 is that apart from Jesus we can do nothing.  It is interesting because when I was apart from Jesus for 31 years of my life, I did a lot of things.  So the point He’s making is that none of them were righteous – not even the things that I thought were good, like sponsoring a child through Compassion International, going to church every weekend faithfully for seven years, taking up the cause for those who were afraid to speak up in certain settings, and all the other things I did, apart from Christ, that made me feel good about who I was.  In God’s economy, none of that was righteous.  So, what Jesus means in His statement is clearly connected to the “fruit of righteousness” that Paul is talking about.  Apart from Christ, there is nothing righteous because righteous by dictionary definition means “justified” or in right standing with God.  Apart from Christ, we are not in right standing with God no matter what we do, but in Christ, we are in right standing with God no matter what we do.  Being “filled with the fruit of righteousness,” as Paul states, has nothing to do, in fact, with anything we do.  It has everything to do with being full of the Person of Jesus, who is the righteousness of God. 

As believers, we often times get off track in our desire to please God.  We confuse the equation of bringing God glory and pleasure with somehow doing great things for Him, when He has gone out of His way in Scripture to say clearly and plainly that His pleasure is not in what we do on earth, but in what we do with Jesus.  That’s why in the parable of the workers in the field the ones who came in at the end of the day reaped the same reward for their labor as the ones who were there all day.  They were being compensated because of Whom they worked for – not for the work done.

As someone who is a critical thinker and tends to be in the camp of the older brother in the story of the prodigal son, I have a hard time with this.  It is difficult to think that everything I do in my own strength to try and please God and bring Him glory counts for nothing.  It takes faith to stand back and embrace the truth that the fruit of righteousness can only become apparent in my life to the degree that I allow the life of Christ to live and the life of Margaret to die.

Today, I will ask God for the faith to set my heart on this reality – only when I manifest the fruit of the Spirit, which is:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, am I bringing glory and pleasure to God, regardless of what I am doing.