Qualifications are a pile of shit

As you may know, my church group is currently going through the Discipleship Explored handbook that deep-dives into the book of Philippians. Philippians is a short letter (only 4 chapters) that Paul writes to the church in Philippi, whilst he was being imprisoned.  Last night was week 5, which looks at our righteousness in Christ.

As I know many of the people reading this blog are not Christian, indeed many are atheists, I don't want to get too bogged down in religious wording; but since these are words that are used in the Bible, I hope I can explain and define them adequately. According to Wiki, righteousness is defined as "the quality of being morally correct and justifiable." 

Many people think our righteousness comes from what we do (or don't do), specifically, that if we do the "right" things, then we can get closer to God.  Philippians 3, however, reminds us that there is nothing we can do to make ourselves righteous before God.  The only way in which we can become righteous has already occurred - through Jesus and faith in Him.  Indeed, Paul was considered the most "good" or "religious" person of his day, being born the right type of person, learning the scriptures, keeping all the laws etc, yet in Philippians 3:8 he calls all those qualifications a pile of shit. Yes, you may be surprised at my choice of that word when discussing the Bible, but Paul does indeed call it all excrement.  The Lexham English Bible uses the word "dung", The Voice uses "a pile of waste", and whilst most English versions do use the sanitised "garbage" or "rubbish", the Wycliffe Bible uses "drit [and I deem as turds]".

In fact, if our Righteousness is to be found in Jesus, and Jesus is sat at the Right hand of God, then our Righteousness is always before Him. Interesting!

One particular thing about the video that struck me, was when the presenter was asking questions about whether certain things made us feel closer or further to God.  Most of the questions, I could easily answer 'no' to; however there was one that I replied 'yes': If you are asked if you're a Christian, do you reply "Yes, but not a good one"? That is wrong, because Christ is our righteousness.

I do answer that I'm not a good Christian, because I know my sin and I know where I'm trying to be.  It's not that I think doing things will make me closer to God - God is love and desires relationship with us - but I'm also aware that "No one is good except God alone." (Mark 10:18)  The reason why this challenged me particularly is because of the work I've been doing with my therapist on my self-worth.  Have I used this verse as another rod to beat myself with?  Nobody can be good, I know I'm not good, therefore I must be bad, and a bad Christian.  I wouldn't want to venture too far the other way, but if my identity is in Christ and He is my righteousness, then I can be bold and simply answer "Yes, I am a Christian".  I am still a sinner, I sin and regularly need God's forgiveness, but Jesus has covered up my sin so that I can approach God boldly and surrender my heart to Him.

As an aside, though still related, when I saw my therapist yesterday, she asked how something made me feel, and I responded "that I'm not all bad".  To me, this is a positive expression because I'm not all bad.  It acknowledges the bad parts, but shows that I have made progress.  Yet, to my therapist, she replied that my response made her sad, because it shows a focus on the bad, rather than stating that I'm a good person, but am human so will make mistakes.  It made me think.  I am in a better place than I was, and am continually working on my self worth, but clearly I have some way to go.  At least I can rest in being a child of God.