None But The Righteous

As kid coming up I heard the old saints singing, what seemed to be a million times, this song: None but the righteous, none but the righteous, none but the righteous shall see God. It was used as a chorus during baptisms.

As I grew older, I knew a sister, who like to refer to herself in the third person and use the title Evangelist repeatedly say “The bible says that the righteous shall scarcely make it in (heaven)…”

Her interpretation of the word bothered me to no end because it reminded me of the heavy-handed way the old church mothers taught from a place of judgment and bias. Don’t get me wrong….I learned some discipline from those ladies and a lot of what they taught was valuable to me in my lifetime but I also began to realize that some of what they taught was a result of oppression and an oppressive theology given to them via slavery.

With this knowledge I began to reflect on and repeatedly revisit what it means to be righteous.

Merriam-Webster defines righteous as such:

1: acting in accord with divine or moral law: free from guilt or sin

2a: morally right or justifiable a righteous decision

b: arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality, righteous indignation

3: slang: GENUINE, EXCELLENT

 Now, with the word defined ask yourselves, who or what defines my righteousness? Believe it or not, righteousness needs both a who and a what to define it. Trust and believe the who, is not the church, the saint, your friends or your mother and father! They can all provide instruction and guidance but righteousness and right standing is determined by God and God alone!

The what, in righteousness, are your actions. To keep this all real for you, folks, your actions may be the only Bible that people read. What do you actions say about your righteousness? These scriptures are supports to what I’m saying:

“For the Lord is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face” (Ps. 11:7).

“And I–in righteousness I will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness” (Ps. 17:15).

“Surely the righteous will praise your name and the upright will live before you” (Ps. 140:13).

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matt. 5:8).

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24).

The bible says to study to show ourselves approved which leads me to bring this all together for you. These few verses address righteousness in its proper context. If we truly see God, our actions reflect what we see, so righteousness is both literal and figurative. Righteous is a noun and a verb linked together by love; the love of God and the love of his people.

Now, getting back to the words of the Evangelist, I knew she had it wrong, her quote of the Scripture was rooted in a judgment and her vision of what it means to be righteous. What I know today is that we ALL fall short of the glory of God …the words scarcely;  1 Peter 4:18 simply translates to having difficulty and what in the world is more difficult than living in it?  There is no judgement attached to this passage because God KNOWS that we are full of flaws and character defects

God knows our struggle Romans 7:19

Stop beating yourselves up for falling short on some things and learn to look for lessons and blessings “BLessons”   Amen.

Pax Christi, One Love Y’all