Of Course I’m Right!
Very few people wake up each morning thinking, “Today, I want to be as bad of a person as I can possibly be.” There are a few exceptions and outliers, but most people have a general desire to make decisions that have some semblance of good – whether they’re seeking good for themselves, or for their close friends, or for society in general. They don’t see themselves as villains, just as you likely don’t see yourself as a villain. You are likely almost always right in your own eyes.
And this is a phenomenon that we should give some thought to, especially since this idea is set before us in the Bible: “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit” (Proverbs 16:2).
Right in Your Own Eyes
Notice the first part of this statement: “All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes.” This means that we, as human beings – it is our impulse to count ourselves as right, to justify ourselves, and to defend our own rightness. Whatever decisions we make, we want to give good reasons for why we did what we did. And if we didn’t originally have good reasons for what we did, we tend to invent them on the fly. Our impulse is to assume our own rightness, and to be suspicious and defensive against the words of others.
Right in the Lord’s Eyes
But notice how this tendency of ours is addressed. Though we tend to insist on our own rightness, the second statement here asserts, “but the LORD weighs the spirit.” In other words, we may succeed in convincing ourselves that we’re right. We may even succeed in convincing many other people that we’re right about a particular topic. And we may feel greatly vindicated about our rightness if we win many people over to our point of view. But if we understand the Scriptures, we’ll be brought to our knees with the realization that the LORD weighs the Spirit, meaning this: God is the one who determines whether or not you’re right. Not you. Not me. Not the majority vote of people in society. God is the judge.
If you’re content with being right in your own eyes, you may not be a Christian. Because the Christian recognizes that my approval of myself, or your approval of yourself – that’s not what matters. What we fundamentally need is to be justified and righteous before God, and to be pure in his sight.
True Rightness
The church’s mission isn’t to convince people of our rightness as much as it is to live and speak as those who are personally convinced of God’s rightness. We need nothing less than the righteousness of Jesus, received by faith, to make us truly right in the fullest sense of the word. So doing what’s right in your own eyes – frankly, it’s not going to get you anywhere. The only way to find true rightness is to humble yourself before Christ, admitting your wrongness, and receiving his rightness.
We’re called to lay down our assumptions and priorities before King Jesus, and learn from him the true excellence of his goodness and rightness. And note here – it isn’t just the unbelieving world that needs to put their old ways to death to be aligned with God. God has given the same call to Christians in the church, too (Colossians 3:5-9). There are still earthly ways in us that must be put away, as we proclaim and pursue the rightness of Jesus. Cultivating a life of humble leaning on the perfections of Jesus, and learning from the piety of Jesus, is where we need to be – as individuals, as families, and as a church. Are you still satisfied with being right in your own eyes? Or have you instead set your sight on the truly pure righteousness of Jesus Christ?
