Raining Righteousness – Hosea 10:12

“Sow for yourselves righteousness;
reap steadfast love;
break up your fallow ground,
for it is the time to seek the LORD,
that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”
Hosea 10:12

I love that righteousness is a result of seeking and knowing our Lord. We don’t have to make ourselves good enough, to work and pay off our debt…Jesus finished it all on the cross. Our part is to seek Him, to believe Him, to surrender, and to allow Him to come in all of His righteousness and truth to change our hearts.

One thing you see recurring in the gospel accounts of the life of Christ is the fact that when He touches the unclean, He makes them clean—as He is. The viewpoint of that day was that to touch anything or anyone unclean would result in your own uncleanliness. Jesus didn’t work that way. He still doesn’t.

Because His righteousness is such that it affects anyone it touches. He can reach out and touch the outcast, the sick, the broken, the sinful, and make each of them whole and righteous in Him. He changes us not only for the better, but for the best, surpassing anything we could dream. He reconciles us to God the Father and cleanses us from all unrighteousness, so that we can live in freedom, joy, and light.

“Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength” (Isaiah 45:24a). It isn’t about our righteousness. It isn’t about our strength. It is about allowing the righteousness and strength of God Most High to fill us, living in His power and walking in His light. We abide in Christ, seeking His face at all times and listening for His voice, coming before the throne of God in prayer and the delight of His Word, and He fills us with Himself. We seek Him, and He comes to rain righteousness upon us.

1 John 1:9 tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So let us seek our Lord in humble faith, confessing our sins and trusting that He will forgive us and cleanse our hearts. And then, let us arise in His strength and walk in His righteousness, obeying the words of our Savior who declares, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11).