Righteousness

There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away; all alike have become useless. There is no one who does good, not even one.

Their throat is an open grave; they deceive wih their tongues. Viper's venom is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and wretchedness are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Romans 3:10-18

Here Paul is quoting a compilation of scriptures: Psalm 14:1-3; Psalm 5:9; Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7; Is 59:7-8; Psalm 36:1

Guess what Paul's favourite scriptures are? Here it looks like Psalms and Isaiah. Yet Paul puts all the scriptures together expertly, woven in gold. He is showing us that mankind is unable to be holy, pure, righteous or even decent, except for the power of God.

Today I went to a funeral service, without a body, it was already buried. Have you noticed that usually the euology glows. You are led to believe that the person who just passed away was a saint. However, today we heard the raw truth, the young man had become a drug addict.

The minister gave a great message, a message of salvation and forgiveness. After the service I discovered that present were two opposing parties who would not speak to each other, in fact hated each other, forgiveness was not to be found.

The sad thing I find is that even in the church this is common. I was speaking to a woman, a fellow believer, last week who had nothing but venom for her neighbour. I asked how long they lived next door to each other and was told 8 years. I asked the name of the neighbour and the Christian did not know.

Forgiveness is a must, we are called to be holy even as our Father is holy. Hatred, bitterness, rancor, enmity and strife should not be in God's people, we are called to live in harmony, that the world will know us by the love we show to one another.