Jesus Is My Righteousness

The last few weeks, I’ve been writing about different names that describe various attributes of God’s character and work. Names are significant in the historical account of the Jews and the historic church. Names often have a “prophetic” reality to them. God changed people’s names to describe their future. The prophet Jeremiah, speaking and writing God’s words, said this: “’For the time is coming,’ says the LORD, ‘when I will raise up a righteous descendant … He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right … And this will be his name: ‘The LORD Is Our Righteousness.’” Jeremiah 23:5-7 (NLT) The LORD is our Righteousness – Jehovah-TSIDKENU – (Sid – Ke – Nu) (I love saying this name of God – Jehovah-TSIDKENU. It rolls off the tongue, and it sounds strong.) Every person comes into this world with a “sin-nature.” We start out selfish. No one teaches an infant or toddler to say “No!”, “Mine!” Or “It wasn’t me!” No one need teach a child to be deceptive or manipulative. It comes with the sin nature. Sin-nature prohibits people from living “righteous” lives. It is not possible. Using a baseball analogy, no one has ever “batted 1000” or played the game of life “error free.” The best of the best of the best batting average is nowhere close to 1000. No one can live error free for even 24 hours. However, Jehovah-TSIDKENU! The LORD is our Righteousness! Jesus’s batting average is 1000, and he lived error free. Because of His death, His batting average and error free life becomes our Righteousness. Yeah, I’m a poor batter and I make too many errors, BUT Jesus’ death enables application of his batting average to my life and his error free life is applied to me. I’m far from perfect – But Jesus! I fail to do what I should – But Jesus! I do things I shouldn’t do – But Jesus! My batting average is something to be ashamed of, but His is worth boasting about! I rack up errors daily, but He is error free! I will brag about Jehovah-TSIDKENU, Jesus is my Righteousness! I’m sticking with Jehovah-TSIDKENU!