It’s one of those very telling passages in the Bible that is easy to just ‘read over’ and miss what it’s saying. We probably are guilty of doing that more than we care to admit. Take a look at Romans 10:1-3 where Paul writes expressing his heart’s desire for his fellow Jewish brothers to basically ‘come to the light’ as he did in recognizing Jesus as the Messiah, so that they too, might be ‘saved’.

Paul acknowledges they have a ‘zeal for God’ (2) and knows how sincere many of them are; yet as we like to say...one can be ‘sincere...yet sincerely wrong’. But it’s verse 3 we need to underline and examine closely. - “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”

For starters, they  seemed to be unaware, as in had no idea, (which is what it means to be ‘ignorant’), when it comes to understanding God’s ‘righteousness’. Think of it this way- if you are building something out back, and you have no tape measure...or maybe trying a new recipe in the kitchen but you have no measuring cups...what do we do? We ‘eye-ball it’, or make do with what ‘looks good to us’, do we not? And that may get you by when constructing a deck or baking a cake, but when it comes to lining up with God’s word...and His standard of holiness, there really is no room for ‘winging it’. And I fear this is a message we have not heard taught enough.

Sadly, the message of ‘grace’ has been twisted to say, in effect, you can ‘eyeball it’, do the best you can, and grace will take care of any imperfections or mistakes (as long as you profess to believe in Jesus). You might call this ‘having a form of godliness’, which Paul warns of in 2 Tim. 3:5. This is why many are in for a rude awakening, not to mention being ‘destroyed’ as those in Matt. 7:21-23 and Hosea 4:6 discovered.

We are looking at that third component in the well-known verse found in 2 Chron. 7:14, the one where God said if His people...would turn... from their wicked ways...He would ‘heal the land’. Remember, we are not talking about all those ‘sinner folks’ we live next door to who never come to church; God is talking about HIS people...turning from their ‘wicked’ ways. Which now leads us to ask...what exactly falls under the heading of ‘wicked ways’?

And this is where it can get interesting, and how we end up ‘establishing our own standard of righteousness’. It is also how we begin down that slippery slope of ‘comparing ourselves by ourselves, which is very unwise’. (2 Cor. 10:12). The Pharisees were called out by Jesus for doing this very thing- “At least I’m not like those bad sinner folks over there!’ (Luke 18:9-14)

In case you are worried I’m about to produce some lengthy list of ‘naughty’ things (wicked ways) for you to compare with your ‘checklist’, hold off...for now. We will look at some more scripture just for the sake of making sure we see what God says...versus what other well-meaning people who have been a part of our lives and upbringing may have taught us. But first, we need to take another look at God’s ‘standard of righteousness’, which we will begin doing tomorrow, Lord willing. And fair warning here- we will touch on the subject of ‘holiness’... given how important it seems to be to God. You and I have been called to “be holy...in ALL our conduct...as He is holy...” (1 Pet. 1:15-16)....and “without this holiness, no one...will see the Lord.” (Heb. 12:14)  His words, not mine.