The Lord is righteous and hath loved righteousness; upon uprightness hath His countenance looked. (Prokeimenon, from Psalm 10, 6th tone, for Wednesday in the First Week of Great Lent)
Why be righteous? It can be so hard sometimes.
Why be righteous? To see the Lord’s face (His countenance). The Lord loves righteousness, because, it causes His beloved creatures to be most like Him. The reason to struggle for righteousness is to become like Him, so that we can see Him as He really is. To the pure all things are pure. If we strive to become pure, we can gaze upon He who is above all purity, and understand.
Do you want to see God? Do you want eternal happiness, and peace and completeness? Only the countenance of God offers these things. And the only way to behold God’s face is to strive to become like Him, as He has revealed Himself, through His only begotten Son.
How marvelous is the Word of God, and how sublime the God-breathed divine services which are a beautiful tapestry, woven throughout with the Word of God. Even a small Prokeimenon, during a weekday service can teach us the whole evangelical gospel and the purpose of life!
O Lord, help us to love righteousness, so that we may behold Thy countenance!
Father, Bless,
Another strong motivation for righteousness is so that I will be able to help those I love and give comfort and aid to those the Lord puts in my path. St. James says that the prayers of a righteous man “availeth much” and the Lord tells me that I cannot help my brother with the mote in his eye while there is a beam in my own. I cannot carry the burdens of others as I am told to do by St. Paul if I am weighed down by the burden of my own sins.
The love of God that creates the longing to see His face also generates love for others that longs to help them see His face, as well. Not too long ago I ran across a quote that said something to the effect that we cannot know if we truly love God but we can know if we love our neighbor and that we love God in proportion to our love for neighbor. The love of our neighbor, and thus our love of God, is demonstrated in our acts of compassion towards our suffering neighbors.
At times it is difficult for me to feel that I truly love God or long to see His face. But when I see the suffering of my loved ones and long to be able to help them, I know the love of God, however small, is in my heart, calling me to righteousness in order that my prayers for them might become more effective, free from selfish motives and sin. “God is far from the ungodly; but he hearkens to the prayers of the righteous.” Proverbs 15:29
Bless and Pray for me,
Deborah
Also, being righteous is what we are made for. Man alone among all creation was given the great gift of being created to be like God — created in the Image of the Righteous and Loving God. And man alone among all of the material creation has failed to live up to his calling… How pitiful this is! How lamentable that we should choose what is ugly and disfigured – hate, selfishness, and so forth – rather than the beauty that was given to us. And we have dragged the whole creation down with us. All evil in the world, all suffering, is the result of our fall… Glory to God that He has given us a path back, a way to return to righteousness.