Solomon concluded his discussion about balance by discussing finding the balance of righteousness. This daily devotional looks at how we can be too righteous.
Nuggets
- Our lives become unbalanced when we become too righteous.
- Even though we are sinful in nature, God calls us to be perfect as He is.
Devotions in The Meaning of Life series
Solomon interrupted his discussion of wisdom to talk about righteousness. He then transitioned to talk about perfection. Those two play a big part in our feeling balanced in our lives.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
On being Too Righteous
“In my futile life I have seen everything: someone righteous perishes in spite of his righteousness, and someone wicked lives long in spite of his evil. Don’t be excessively righteous, and don’t be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself? Don’t be excessively wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should you die before your time? It is good that you grasp the one and do not let the other slip from your hand. For the one who fears God will end up with both of them” (Ecc. 7: 15-18 CSB)
Our lives become unbalanced when we become too righteous.
Wait. Something is really wrong here. Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
“In my futile life I have seen everything: someone righteous perishes in spite of his righteousness, and someone wicked lives long in spite of his evil” (Ecc. 7: 15 CSB). Perishes in spite of his righteousness just seems wrong.
We generally think of this as someone who is an over-the-top religious person. Hook contrasted those with the people who “… will take care of what is the minimum of faith and good works which will save them from damnation …” Those are the ones we generally think God will look down upon.
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But is Hook saying that God has problems with both ends of the continuum?
I think it will depend on our definition of overly much. If it is, like Hook described, our having increased prayer time, frequent attendance at services, and fasting, that really isn’t overly much.
Worldview people think our witnessing to them is overly much. They think we should keep our relationship with God to ourselves. What they don’t want to acknowledge is that witnessing is part of our job description.
The Disciple’s Job Description
Complete Job Description
Individual Description
Job Duty #4
Proclaim the Gospel (Mark 16: 15)
Job Duty #6
Make Disciples (Matthew 28: 19-20)
So, what is overly much righteousness?
Hook talked about pretenders in religion. The Pharisees were the poster child here. They thought they were overly religious, but Jesus said they didn’t have a clue.
Person of Interest
There are also those who identify as believers who think that gives them license to sin. (Hook thought the Pharisees did, but I am not so convinced on that.) It doesn’t. God calls us to follow His laws and commandments.
Taylor identified those who try to work out their righteousness for themselves.
We try to do our own self-help program. But remember God said we can’t do it without Him.
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To read a related devotion, click the button below.
It isn’t about our personal righteousness, either. It is about God’s righteousness, which we reflect.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Watkinson said that sometimes we allow righteousness to run wild. He noted it can be strained, arbitrary, inharmonious, and exaggerated.
- Watkinson contends that Paul advised Timothy to hold fast to the form and pattern of righteousness, but we try to hold fast to every particle. That makes it strained.
- We sometimes like — and worldview people try to force us — to pick and choose which laws and commandments we are going to follow. We can’t do that. We have to follow them all.
- We also cannot apply them differently to different people. Tom can’t get away with telling complete lies, while Sally can get away with telling white lies, and Elaine has to always tell the truth.
- Ooo, baby. Don’t we up the requirement on some laws and commandments? Didn’t Eve? God said don’t eat the fruit. She said don’t touch.
We even get out of balance when we evaluate ourselves. We bite on ourselves too much for the sins we commit. We keep biting on ourselves for sins God on which has already forgiven us.
Oh, slam. Watkinson wrote, “But some of us are evermore arraigning ourselves at the bar of conscience about arbitrary, frivolous, vexatious things.”
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In other words, we are sweating the small stuff. We need to quickly respond to God’s call and totally choose to follow His ways on the meaty matters of life.
Unfortunately, runaway righteousness gives itself away when it strives for standards of a character that is unattainable. Now, don’t get me wrong. We’ve been looking all year at sanctifying our character in our redo for godliness.
The problem, as Watkinson describes it, is when we try for something even more than what God is asking. I read it to mean we are trying to make us more godlike than God.
Stillingfleet took it another way. He thought what we get wrong is “… the nature and measures and bounds of what they account duties of religion.” Okay, I see that.
We like our yard sticks. We especially like our boundaries. We want to know we can go this far and no farther — but especially that we can go this far. We can do this, but not if it bleeds over into that.
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Yeah. That smacks of the checklist we so love. “Just let us know so we don’t have any doubts what You are looking for, God.”
“Just let us know so we can judge others.” Yeah, that is probably more like it. Remember Wilkinson’s arbitrary and inharmonious?
Stillingfleet tied this back to our previous devotion on wisdom. Wisdom is a moral virtue.
Sometimes, we think we are the smartest person in the room. That gets really bad when we try to hook that with being overrighteous.
Jortin said meddle into other people’s lives and try to fix defects that may or may not be there. Worse yet, we try to fix God’s doctrines.
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Trust me. He isn’t going to just send us to time out for that offense.
On being Perfect When We Aren’t
“Wisdom makes the wise person stronger than ten rulers of a city. There is certainly no one righteous on the earth who does good and never sins. Don’t pay attention to everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you, for in your heart you know that many times you yourself have cursed others” (Ecc. 7: 19-22 CSB)
Even though we are sinful in nature, God calls us to be perfect as He is.
My first thought reading these verses was that Solomon thought he was still in Proverbs.
Boston described verse 20. He wrote, “Here is the undoubted character of all the human race, fixing imperfection and sinfulness on the best of the kind in this world, and so concluding all to be liable to sin, and under it.”
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Yep, that’s how it is. We ABCD. We think we are going to keep God’s laws and commandments perfectly, and — oops, we don’t.
We’ve talked multiple times what does it really mean when it says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt. 5: 48 CSB).
Boston wrote, “It is a perfect conformity of heart and life to the commands of God …” That means obeying God’s laws and commandments through the greatest commandments.
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Glossary
Another thing Boston said was “sincerity is not enough in the eye of the law.” We can be people of integrity. Good for us.
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It isn’t going to get us anywhere on judgment day if we haven’t ABCDed.
No, we can’t be perfect in this life. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (I Jn. 1: 8 ESV).
It is our duty to be perfect, but there is struggle in life as we try to be. “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5: 17 ESV).
Every time we fall short, we need Jesus’ blood to take away the sin.
Solomon told us to not pay attention to what others say of us. Park disagreed to some extent. If we have wronged others, we need to know this.
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However, we shouldn’t be overly concerned about what others think. We have to realize that worldview people are judging us on worldview standards, not God’s. We shouldn’t be concerned with worldview standards.
We need to be concerned with what God thinks of us.
Making the Connections
God doesn’t want us hitting the extremes. He wants to be sober and self-controlled. Sober is a character trait distinguished by self-control, genuineness, and sound moral judgment.
Glossary
How Do We Apply This?
- Seek God, but remember we aren’t going to understand and learn everything about God.
- Cut others slack when we are finding fault with them.
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Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
I can’t give any better advice than Hook. He wrote, “… be as righteous as you possibly can; go on improving; seek to grow in grace; attend to little things, as well as great; be always careful lest you should not be righteous enough, if God were this day to require your soul of you. Be very careful lest you should be overmuch wicked; let no man scare you from your duty, in seeking to advance in the straight and narrow path, which leadeth unto life, by their suggestions that ye be not ‘righteous overmuch.’”
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We need to keep in balance by being sober and even keeled.
Father God. You call us to be sober and balanced. You call us to be righteous and perfect. Lord, help us to be what You call us to be. Amen.
What do you think?
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