The righteous one will live by faith

Good morning, everyone,

Our theme for this month: “Sound doctrine, strong faith”

Our Bible verse for today: “For in it (the gospel) the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:17 (CSB)

Our thought for today: “The righteous one will live by faith”

Romans 1:17 addresses an important and essential piece of evidence that reveals a person’s faith to be true and strong – it reveals the righteousness of God. God’s righteousness means that what He does is always right, it is always good, and it is always best. God’s nature is holy and perfect; His character is exactly right and without flaw; His law, His precepts, His principles, are perfect and right, lacking nothing. The righteousness of God (the rightness of God) – means that God is always in the right and He can always be relied upon to do what is right.

As sinners redeemed by grace and in the process of being transformed by the Holy Spirit, God’s righteousness is imparted to us. As we are progressively transformed more-and-more into the image of Christ, God’s righteousness shows itself more-and-more in our character, it is revealed in our words and actions.

When Paul writes that the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, he means that we experience the righteousness of God because we do have faith, and then we show others the righteousness of God when we live by faith. That’s why he follows that statement by quoting the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk 2:4, “The righteous shall live by faith.” In other words, “My people are to live by faith, regardless of what they think they see going on around them.” Faith leads to faith. We have faith and then we live by faith.

If you’re not familiar with Habakkuk’s short story, Habakkuk was sort of at his wit’s end with God. Evil was rampant in Israel at that time and to Habakkuk, it seemed as if God was turning a blind eye to it and just letting evil rule the day. So, in chapter one, Habakkuk launched a series of complaints at God.

Also, Habakkuk realized that God was in the process of using a nation that was even more wicked than Israel, (Babylon) to punish Israel. This produced even more complaints and cries of injustice from Habakkuk. Then in Chapter Two Habakkuk declared that he was going to watch and wait to see how God would respond to his complaints.

God responded by essentially telling Habakkuk, “Hold your horses, son. I’m not AWOL. I’m not absent from the scene. I’m not unaware of what’s going on, and I do have a plan to deal with it. I’m about to show you and everyone else something that will really get your attention. It will demonstrate my righteousness (my rightness about everything always).

Then God tells Habakkuk to be prepared to write down and share what was going to be revealed to him. That’s when, in 2:4 God declared that “the righteous will live by faith”. In other words, “Trust me. I’ve got this.” Finally, in chapter three we read of a somewhat chastised and contrite Habakkuk now singing God’s praises.

That was Habakkuk’s tutorial about living by faith. We will come back to this lesson tomorrow. For today, I encourage you to trust God. He’s got “this”, whatever “this” is in your life right now. The righteous one will live by faith.

God bless,
Pastor Jim

(If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00 – in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville

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