I John 3:7 says, “Little Children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.”
While bringing a busload of kids down my mountain bus route one morning, I worked my way along a steep mountain cut-out. On the left the mountain rose steeply. On the right was a guardrail, separating us from the river below. Suddenly a deer came bounding down the steep hill, hit once in the center of the road, and flew over the guardrail. I wish I could have seen if it landed in the river far below. Something must have been chasing it, perhaps a cougar. Generally deer casually angle their way down steep hills—and eventually leave deer trails, that even hunters can walk down. In Israel I saw a number of these trails on steep, bare hillsides. I was informed that shepherds lead their flocks safely on these trails, called “paths of righteousness.”
We might ask, “What is righteousness?” One definition could be, following the Good Shepherd in the path of righteousness. Some would say, “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags…” (Isaiah 64:6). This verse is often taken out of context. Let’s look at the two verses before, verses 4&5, “For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor received by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him. Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways: behold, thou art wroth; for we have sinned: in those is continuance, and we shall be saved.”
Our text states that there are those that doeth righteousness. Able was one (Genesis 4:4), then Enoch (Genesis 5:24). Genesis 6:9 states, “These are the generations of Noah; Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.” How was Noah perfect and not self-righteous? He walked with God.
When Jesus was born, there was a man named Simeon, a “just man and devout.” The Holy Ghost came upon him (Luke 2:25). In the same day there was Anna the prophetess who stayed in the temple serving God night and day with fasting and prayer (Luke 2:36&37). I almost passed by Zacharias and Elisabeth (Luke 1:5&6), “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (V. 6).
We live in a day when many are not doing righteousness. There is also the self-righteous crowd pretending to be righteous without walking with God. Self-righteousness is a trick of Satan to keep us from following the Shepherd in true righteousness. David said, “He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:3).
The text says, “…let no man deceive you.” If we do righteousness we are righteous. So let’s choose to do it, not let Satan chase us into the river and steal our RIGHTEOUSNESS!
