In my younger years, I compared myself to certain others who appeared to be holy. These people seemed to be aglow, always upbeat, smiling, seeming much more Christlike than me. I never thought I measured up to their holiness, so I prayed, “Lord, make me righteous like Brother So-and-so. How wonderful it must be to live that way for you.”
How wrong I was! These people were not who I thought they were. Indeed, I have learned that nothing is as it appears; no one is quite as evil or quite as good as he may seem. Rather, there is only one man who is truly righteous: Jesus Christ our Lord, and his righteousness is perfect.
If we are in Christ, we have his righteousness, and it is not attributed to us by degrees. No one receives more or less of it; rather by faith, we receive it in its fullness.
We are to measure ourselves by his righteousness alone and not by anyone else’s supposed righteousness. “For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. We, however, will not boast beyond measure, but within the limits of the sphere which God appointed us—a sphere which especially includes you” (2 Corinthians 10:12-13, NKJV).
Paul is saying here, “There’s a rule you can use to measure yourself. It is this: Everyone who truly repents and believes in the perfect righteousness of Christ, who comes to him in faith, believing in his work on the cross, is made perfectly righteous in the sight of God. You may not have everything worked out yet. There is still a daily work of sanctification through the power of the Holy Spirit, but you are accepted in the beloved, imputed with the very righteousness of Christ.”
Dearly beloved, it is time you stopped putting yourself either up or down as measured against others. God has imputed to you the full measure of the perfect righteousness of Christ. “Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).