There are many forces in this world that put themselves in a place of leadership. Men desire to lead other men; simply turn on the television and you will see countless people all eager to give their opinion and advice on all kinds of things, setting themselves up in positions of leadership. We in moments of pride, desire to lead ourselves, and of course Satan has always desired leadership as well.
However, when we follow these leaders, or ourselves, where do we end up? The Bible says in 2nd Peter that those who follow other things and people are led into sin and darkness. However there is One Good Shepherd; One who does not lead astray, but leads into true rest and freedom from all bondage and oppression. This is what we will be studying today. Following the Good Shepherd into Righteousness.
When you hear the word “righteousness” what comes to mind? The Biblical definition of righteousness is “right-standing with God”. However for many people, the idea of attaining this right-standing righteousness conjures up ideas of piousness and a need to work to earn righteousness before approaching God.
You may be a person well established in the Gospel of Grace, but you might be surprised how this mentality of trying to earn righteousness filters into our lives, even on a subconscious level. There are many people in churches today, serving not out of an abundance of God's divine love and provision for them, but because they feel as though if they were not to, they would somehow lose spiritual points with God and fall out of favor with Him. But this idea exposes a lack of understanding regarding the righteousness of God, and so this what we will be studying today.
In the past weeks we have seen how Jesus brings success in every area of life when He is the central focus. Today we will be studying in greater detail exactly how to do this, because there is still some confusion about it. Not reducing Jesus to a formula or a set of rules, not at all, but the scriptures are quite detailed in describing how Jesus is to be applied to our lives – and the very reason such things are described is for our benefit, because God loves us and He actually wants us to receive His provision for us.
If you have been needing the provision of Jesus in a specific area of your life, this study is going to benefit you today.