RIGHTEOUSNESS BRINGS PEACE

The mountains shall bring peace to the people . . . by righteousness.- Psa 72:3

For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. - Rom 14:17

Rom 14:17 can be seen as a progression with peace and joy proceeding out of righteousness. (In a class on Bible Study Methods, I was taught that the first word is the most important in a list of words.) But let's look for confirmation in other verses and let scripture interpret scripture. The opening verse of this article is our first confirmation, stating that it is by righteousness that the mountains bring peace.

THE WORK OF RIGHTEOUSNESS IS PEACE

Isaiah agrees with our first two scriptures by stating the same thing in this verse:

And the work of righteousness shall be peace. - Isa 32:1

Isaiah stated that the work of righteousness is peace and the psalmist wrote that peace is brought by righteousness. It seems that righteousness can rightly be called the foundation of peace. What an important bit of information to those of us who are hungry for peace! Also note that when these two are in place, joy well ups up within. Since peace and joy come out of righteousness, let'’s look deeper into what it means to be righteous.

DEFINITIONS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

Here are two amplifications from The Amplified Bible that follow the word righteousness. In these scriptures, righteousness is defined as:

• That state which makes a person acceptable to God -
  Rom 14:17
  
• Conformity to God's will in thought and deed - James 3:18

In both verses, the word righteousness comes from the Greek word that Strong's Dictionary numbers as G1343. The definition of this Greek word ties together both equity of character (or act) and righteousness through justification. To paraphrase Joyce Meyer: When we first trust God and He comes to live within us by His Spirit, he puts righteousness in us. Then because we have a deposit of His righteousness in us, we begin to do right things.

Here are some other definitions of righteousness:

• Saying 'Yes’' to right things and 'No'’ to wrong things
• "Right living" - The Message Bible
  

These right actions flow out of our relationship with Christ.

Righteousness begins with receiving Jesus as our Lord and Savior and letting the sacrifice of his blood justify us. God counts us as innocent because of what Christ has done. That'’s the Good News of the New Testament!

LET'S SEEK AFTER PEACE

Obviously, we cannot have peace without righteousness. In future posts we will continue to look into how we can cooperate with the Prince of Peace to experience more fully his peace within us and how we can bring his peace into our relationships and circumstances.

I'm on a quest for greater peace and rest in God; I hope you will join me in the days ahead!

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