Righteous: The Pursuit and the Rewards

“. . . No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly Psalm 84: 11b.

Psalm 84 is a pilgrimage psalm written by the sons of Korah that expresses a deep, emotional longing for the presence of God. To read the psalm in its entirety, click here.

We Don’t Always Find What We Seek

If we seek to be upright, we will find it. And no good thing will be withheld, according to this verse. If we instead seek the good things, we will find neither uprightness, nor the good things we are looking for.

If we want to have no good thing withheld, we must seek righteousness first. This is the same basic idea as Mathew 6: 33.

In other words, this verse is saying that if we seek first uprightness, every good thing will be added.

According to Strong’s Bible Dictionary, the word upright means entire, integrity, truth:—without blemish, complete, full, perfect, sincerely (-ity), sound, without spot, undefiled, whole.

This is a lot. But if we love God supremely, and our neighbor as ourselves, we are actually accomplishing this.

To Be Righteous

To seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness is to pursue uprightness as a matter of first importance. If we “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” Mathew 6: 33.

If we pursue first uprightness, no good thing shall be withheld.

But as my hero in the faith Joyce Meyer has said, “we should enjoy where we’re at on the way to where we’re going”.

An important reminder: our motive for being upright shouldn’t just be to be blessed and have a good life. It should ultimately be to glorify God. And God is glorified when His children are doing well, just as an earthly parent is.

To read another post similar to Righteous: The Pursuit and the Rewards, see The Desire of Your Heart and the Desire for God: The Link.