Whoever pursues righteousness and love 
finds life, prosperity, and honor. 
Proverbs 21:21

A first read of the phrase “righteousness and love” might suggest a contradiction. 

Righteousness sounds a little like legalism, while love sounds like freedom.

Do you and I tend to embrace love and push away righteousness? Does pursuing love feel noble while pursuing righteousness feels impossible? 

Because of the cross and resurrection of Jesus, we do not pursue righteousness to be saved, but because we are saved. Those who profess faith in Jesus are declared righteous in Christ. Our identity in Him catapults us into a joyful, lifetime pursuit of righteousness and love.   

To pursue righteousness and love is to pursue Jesus. He was and is both. Jesus—fully God and fully man—was holy and perfect. That makes Him an acceptable sacrifice to atone for our sin.

He was and is righteous, but He is also love. Not just in His behavior, but in His being. Noun and verb. Because He was and is loving, He chose to be the sacrifice.  

Christ’s righteousness made Him an acceptable sacrifice. His love made Him want to do it.  

The journey of growing in faith is one of learning to abide in Christ. As we yield more of ourselves to Him, learn to die to ourselves, and defer to His authority, we become conformed to His image. We are His image-bearers and it becomes more evident as we follow in His steps.  

We are both righteous and cherished. We are loved deeply and sacrificially by a righteous and loving God who died that we could live. And that living should be defined by righteousness and love. To settle for anything else will bring less when God has more for us.  

We pursue righteousness and love from a position of victory: we are His, we are safe and sealed for eternity because of Jesus. The pursuit of righteousness and love is the “working out” of what God worked in.  

The reality is that we fail continually. We miss the mark, every day. On our own, we have no inherent, consistent righteousness or capacity to love.  We want to, we mean to, we try to, and yet we fail. Each day is a new opportunity to choose life or choose death—to choose the way of living in Christ by pursuing righteousness and love, or to choose to live for self and miss out in the process.  

Our ability to seek after righteousness and love comes from Him. He both calls us to it and enables us to live it. Our part is making the choice each day to go after it … to pursue righteousness and love. To pursue Jesus.  

Because the Bible calls us to both, we must embrace both. And look at the rewards: life, prosperity, and honor. These are the by-products of the daily pursuit. You don’t chase them independently. They come as a result of seeking Jesus, the embodiment of righteousness and love.  

The word “pursue” suggests action, urgency, and commitment. There’s no hint of a meandering, slothful, distracted stroll. This is a race—a focused, all-in sprint with eyes set firmly on the goal.  

What does the simultaneous pursuit of righteousness and love look like lived out? A few ideas: 

• Throwing away – some stuff that needs to be gone. 
• Showing restraint – giving up my right to do what I want. 
• Making room – in my schedule, my budget, and around my dinner table.
• Closing my mouth.
• Opening my Bible.
• Taking a stand.
• Speaking up.
• Choosing to forgive.
• Pray without ceasing.
• Start over…again 

Now ask yourselves—better still, ask God—how each of those actions can encompass both righteousness and love. We can’t just check off the box and congratulate ourselves for doing the deed. What is the attitude? What is the motivation? What will now fill up the space?  

Love and righteousness must be pursued together. Like two sides of a coin, they are both aspects of God’s nature. If we pursue only righteousness, we slide towards legalism and self-righteousness. But exclusively pursuing love means we may forsake holiness, cheapen His grace, and adopt an “anything goes” attitude.  

If righteousness alone characterizes our relationships, we may discipline our children with harshness, find ourselves defined by a critical spirit, and labor under the weight of performing for acceptance.  

But if we only love with our human definition of love, we settle for a watered-down version. It’s a distorted, blurred vision of real love, rooted in pride—where we care so much about being liked that we hold out on the truth.

If we don’t love others enough to tell them the truth—to point them to the One who is “the way, the truth, and the life”—how can our love be real? A mother who pursues love disciples her child not to manage his or her outward behavior, but to steer the child’s heart to God. She has the courage to speak the truth in love to her friends. And her loving actions speak far more loudly than even her words of love.  

What does “pursue righteousness and love” look like in the 21st century? Why not ask the One who declared you righteous and loves you with a perfect love? 

How are you and I challenged to pursue righteousness and love in our lives? Watch for the April installment of
Write The Word …
coming this Thursday, March 28th!