Three Streams

Perfect Righteousness, Your Inheritance — Claim It!

By David WilkersonAugust 19, 1996

There is only one kind of righteousness that God accepts — and that is perfect righteousness! Nothing else will stand in His presence on Judgment Day. Unless our righteousness is absolutely perfect, He cannot save us, justify us, recognize or accept us.

Yet, is there anyone brazen enough to think he can stand before the throne of Jesus Christ and present something of his own doing — good works, good behavior, all the dos and don’ts he observed — and call it perfect righteousness? No — never! Such a man will find himself on that day wearing filthy rags!

There are two kinds of righteousness. First, there is the righteousness of man. This righteousness is a life-and-death battle to remain above temptations — a struggle with only partial victories and many horrible defeats. It consists of great efforts to do good, to avoid evil, to please God by rising up from our failures and trying to do it right the next time. I think of the old gospel song, “Try Me One More Time, Lord.” It says, “Lord, I’ve failed — please, try me one more time!”

Yet, in the end, a legal, manmade righteousness is a terrible struggle, mixed with torment. Whenever temptation turns into failure, we fall into total despair, as though God has totally forsaken us. We become caught in an endless cycle of sin and confess, sin and confess… We are always uneasy in the presence of God, constantly aware of having done things that are wrong. We feel we never measure up to the righteous standard of God.

Indeed, many Christians have never broken free from this struggle. The apostle Paul says of these: “…they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2). In other words: “These people mean well. They truly love God and try to please Him. But they are ignorant of what He has provided for them in Jesus Christ!”

“For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (verse 3).

Do you submit yourself to the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ? Or do you still think you are somehow able to mold, polish and work on yourself, so that eventually you can say, “I’m okay, Lord. I can’t really think of anything in my life that is wrong.”

The truth is, even if you’ve kept 99 percent of the law — even if you’ve broken just one point — you would still be condemned before God! You don’t have a righteousness He can accept. Even if no one could point a finger at anything in your life, your every action still has to come from an absolutely clean heart that springs from God’s pure love. If not, you can’t be acceptable before God!

Paul’s desire was to: “…be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Philippians 3:9).