Righteousness: how to live a righteous life and deal with self
International speaker and teacher of the word, Joyce Meyer has enjoined Christians to eschew the spirit of self-righteousness noting that a self-righteous spirit is inimical to the spiritual growth of a child of God. She explained that righteousness comes from the heart
In a new message which is presently being relayed online, Meyer said no matter the level of a person’s righteous disposition, such righteousness cannot please God, adding that what pleases God is what had already been done by Jesus on the cross for the believer.
She said a child of God is righteous not because he does everything right but because the righteous one, Jesus lives in him. That is righteousness “no matter how we try we cannot be flawless. We need the savior and Jesus already saved us. We are suppose to be pure in words, actions and thoughts. I would break that before I even go out of bed in the morning. So you see we need a savior” she said.
She said one of the ways to know a self-righteous person is the judgmental attitude of the person. “If a person prays for four hours and finds out another person prays for three minutes he sneers. He believes praying for long hours is righteousness He looks down on the person. A self-righteous person measures others by his own deeds. This is not right.”
She gave her own example saying, “one of the mistakes I made was to set standard for myself and announced to my family that I was going to pray for 4 hours. I locked the door against myself and asked that nobody would disturb me. I began to pray and I prayed loud. The clock was right before me. After I had prayed and screamed and thought I had prayed for a long time, I checked the time I had just spent five minutes. I had three hours fifty five minutes to go. I simply lied before God and slept off”
She reasoned that when we begin to set laws for ourselves we are bound to fail adding that it is only the grace of God that can help us live for the Lord if we allow Him. “The way to go is to love God not because we have to but because we want to. It is something that should come from our hearts and it should be natural. That is righteousness” she said.
She then went on to give the example of her son when he was small who on her own cleaned the windows. “He did not have to do that. He cleaned the windows and was so happy to tell me that he had cleaned the windows. I was happy with him. I just smiled and blessed him. Righteousness comes from the heart not from works. the fruit of the heart produces the work”
Story by Gbenga Osinaike