Faith and Righteousness 

Faith and righteousness are connected because our faith and acceptance of the Father’s forgiveness can inspire us to forgive others and to live in a righteous way.

Jesus emphasized the importance of true righteousness – a righteousness that is sincere and not showy, as was often on display by the Pharisees and others. True righteousness is different from “self-righteousness.” Self-righteousness is synonymous with a holier-than-thou attitude that is showy and insincere. True righteousness is not pursued for personal recognition; it is pursued because it is the right thing to do

Jesus outlined four steps to righteousness that must be taken by all children of God in order to grow into hardy and robust children of God. These steps inspire us to fellowship with our brothers and sisters in acts of loving service. These steps begin with the Father’s forgiveness and proceed naturally to loving and forgiving one another. This is the righteousness that is characterized by goodness, virtue, decency, integrity, and morality in our relations with others.

The kind of righteousness that Jesus fostered in his apostles and followers is a righteousness born in the faith of the sincere child of God. And this is the faith that earns the believer entrance into the kingdom of heaven. The heavenly Father accepts our gift of faith by offering his forgiveness. But receiving this act of forgiveness by the Father is a distinct experience that involves four steps which are the steps of inner righteousness:

One can only personally experience the Father's forgiveness in equal measure to how well one forgives their fellow human beings.

We cannot truly forgive others unless and until we love them as we love ourselves.

Loving one another is an example of the highest ethics.

True righteousness, or moral conduct, is the natural outcome of such love for others.

Understanding and actually taking these steps naturally leads to the desire to serve one another in loving ways. This desire becomes the motivation for our way of living because finding God for ourselves and the consciousness of being part of the kingdom of heaven are experiences that cannot be contained and held alone. One finds that through such an experience, enlarging the kingdom through the outward and loving service of one’s fellows becomes an overriding desire of life. This love and service is indicative of the family nature of the kingdom, wherein all of our brothers and sisters are part of the family of God along with us.

Jesus taught that the kingdom is within; even though the experience of living the religion of the kingdom is personal to each believer, the results of such a life are exhibited in loving relations with others. Our righteous behavior is the way we unfold our moral nature in relation to others. This kind of inner-motivated righteousness is very different from simply obeying the precepts of established religions that teach us to love one another. In the kingdom, our motivations come from within and are the result of our faith-acceptance – and our inner experience – of being part of that kingdom of heaven.

Humanity has not yet learned to practice the principles of the gospel of the kingdom as Jesus taught them. But when these principles are finally recognized and realized on a global scale, they will transform the world.