Clothed in Righteousness
By Pastor Micah Glenn, Head of School
Have you ever been in a situation where you did everything you could to dress up nice for an event, party, work, or even just school, only to find out that you have an awkwardly placed hole in your jeans? And while I know I have a habit of using recent examples from my life as illustrations in these articles, that definitely isn’t the case today.
Maybe you spent extra time getting ready, checked yourself in the mirror, and walked out the door feeling pretty good about yourself, only to discover later that your carefully planned outfit had a flaw everyone else could see before you did. Suddenly, all that effort does not feel quite as successful.
Spiritually, we can fall into the same trap. We work hard to make ourselves look good. We try to make the right choices, say the right things, accomplish impressive things, and convince ourselves and others that we have everything together. Yet, no matter how hard we try, we cannot clothe ourselves in the righteousness God requires. Sin always leaves a hole somewhere, and no amount of spiritual patchwork can make us righteous before God.
That is what makes the words of Isaiah 61:10 so comforting:
“He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the robe of righteousness.”
Notice who does the clothing. God does.
We do not earn our robe of righteousness; we can’t buy it, or stitch it together through enough good works. God gives it to us through Jesus. Christ takes our sin, shame, and brokenness upon Himself at the cross and gives us His righteousness in return. So when God looks at us, He does not see all the holes we have desperately tried to hide or repair ourselves. He sees us covered by Christ.
This week, as we reflect on being “Clothed in Righteousness,” we can stop trying to make ourselves worthy before God and instead rejoice that, through Jesus, God has already given us something far better than anything we could ever make for ourselves: faith, created and sustained in us by the Holy Spirit, which receives the righteousness Christ has won for us.