righteousness on Satisfaction

A Revelation and a Prophecy The Revelation of Jesus Christ can be overwhelming to read and difficult to understand due to its heavy use of imagery and symbolism. However, the opening chapter introduc...

Preaching Commentary A Revelation and a Prophecy The Revelation of Jesus Christ can be overwhelming to read and difficult to understand due to its heavy use of imagery and symbolism. However, the o...

If you seek righteousness first, you get happiness. If you seek happiness first, you get neither.

A taste of righteousness can be easily perverted into an overweening sense of self-righteousness and judgmentalism.

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Wisdom Song It is not too far a stretch to imagine an eager young person sitting at the feet of a well-seasoned elder and receiving the words of thi...

Self-indulgence is the enemy of gratitude, and self-discipline usually its friend and generator. That is why gluttony is a deadly sin. The early desert fathers believed that a person’s appetites are l...

Of course, we do the righteous deed because of our redemption, not for our redemption.

Trust in the Lord, and do good. Dwell in the land, and enjoy safe pasture. Also delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also i...

Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.

Hallelujah! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the deeds of the LORD! they are studied by all who delight in them. ...

"Righteousness," within the lawcourt setting-and this is something that no good Lutheran or Reformed theologian ought ever to object to-denotes the status that someone has when the court has...

O my Lord, I discern in my anger a sense of self-righteousness, which is much too close to pleasure. And I think of you, Lord. You were never angry in your own defense, and you took no pleasure in ang...

Pop psychology is wrong when it tells you to look inside yourself and find your value. The magazines are wrong when they suggest you are only as good as you are thin, muscular, pimple-free, or perfume...

If every man and woman in the world knew what it was to hunger and thirst after righteousness, there would be no danger of war.

Righteous God, we receive your grace and forget your justice. You teach us to move with compassion yet we have remained complacent. God, forgive us for our complacency and our apathy. Fuel us with you...

We fixate on sins of commission far too much. We practice holiness by subtraction-don't do this, don't do that, and you're okay. The problem with that is this: you can do nothing wrong and...

We can “know” something to be true, and then find it is not true after all. I recall confidently assertive to a student that, of course, the name of the region Perea (to the east of the Dead Sea) appe...

Pastor: This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we as...

Leader: Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! All: Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands...

Reader: Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! People: Praise befits the upright. Reader: Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; People: make melody to him with the harp ...

Ancient lens What's the historical context? Living as Captives Our text today matches, at least in part, last week’s lectionary passage (Isaiah 40). Just as in Isaiah 40, a message of comfort...

​If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character. If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony in the home. If there is harmony in the home, there will be o...

Reader: Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! People: Praise befits the upright. Reader: Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; People: make melody to him with the harp ...

I knew a man who was the head of a set of car dealerships in the South. The way in which things were done was you could come in and negotiate, and the salesman had a pretty big window of what they cou...

In the words of Psalm 32:11, go forth today and “Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous and shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart!”

Leader: O Holy Love, food of our souls, living spring of the water of life, we worship you. All: Our souls thirst for your presence; and we hunger for your grace. O Christ, Bread of Life, sown...

Psalm 85 says, “Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.” As we go forth today, may we go in love, in faithfulness, in righteousness, and in peace. Amen.

Many people live righteously for selfish or misguided reasons. If you are striving to please God, examine your motives today.

Jesus does not divide the world into the moral “good guys” and the immoral “bad guys.” He shows us that everyone is dedicated to a project of self-salvation, to using God and others in order to get po...

Our confidence in Christ does not make us lazy, negligent or careless, but, on the contrary, it awakens us, urges us on and makes us active in living righteous lives and doing good. There is no self-c...