This week as we seek to Adore our Savior, this Jesus, the Messiah, we look at His Righteousness.

Righteous means being in right standing before God, worthy of standing before God the Father, faultless. Jesus is the only man to ever live on the earth who lived a perfect life, without fault. Not needing to feel shame or guilt or regret. We, however, feel the weight of this shame and guilt and regret when we look into our hearts and into our souls. We feel the tension between who we want to be and who we are not. We have no righteousness of our own, but thanks be to God the Father for sending Jesus, who paid our debt and bought the ability to declare us righteous by swallowing up our sin and failures—by imparting His perfection on those who would call upon His name.   

Deuteronomy 32:3-4 says,
For I will proclaim the name of the LORD;
    ascribe greatness to our God!
“The Rock, his work is perfect,
            for all his ways are justice.
A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,
            just and upright is he.

This poem was read on Sunday morning in our Gatherings. Dwell on these words as you ponder how the God, the Righteous One, came o earth, born in human flesh.

He Is the Righteous One

He is righteous
This Jesus, one in being with the Father
The word that was made flesh, yet present at the start when
Creation was spoken into existence, set in perfection
man made in the frame of the Almighty, but hell-bent on insurrection

God doesn't know
God isn't close
Is God on the throne? 
Does God have a hold?
If God’s in my soul
then why am I prone
to this failure

But He is the Righteous One

Perfect from the start, perfectly pure in heart
The burning white-hot radiance of his purity
dwarfing that of the sun and a whole galaxy of stars.
He never sinned, not a single stain
he never fails, his goodwill never wanes
His will is never thwarted, His power never constrained

A father to his children,
a king to the people of his dominion
he took pity on us and considered our condition. 

Not just in ignorance
the extent our sin, it
was inconquerable.  
These unpardonable hearts of stone
marginal and far from hope
prodigals and the volatile
all alone, redemption impossible. 

But He is the Righteous One and He has come near. 

Laid in a manger, fully God, and fully infant
Fully infinite and full of redemption
Always full yet ready to be emptied in
a moment, on the hill, sin's penance fully fulfilled
Pardoning with certainty
Imparting his purity
disarming sins fury, he's
Emmanuel, God with us,
promising security.

For He is the Righteous One and in Him, we are now righteous ones.  

Read the other weeks of Advent: 
Week One - the MIghty One
Week Two - the Holy One