Deuteronomy 6:25 English Standard Version (ESV) And it will be righteousness for us, if we are careful to do all this commandment before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us.’

This will be our righteousness, if we do the commands. This is the Old Testament standard requirement for righteousness. Here is the command.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 English Standard Version (ESV)

⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Try as they might, they failed and they had no righteousness of their own.

Romans 3:9-11 English Standard Version (ESV)

No One Is Righteous

⁹ What then? Are we Jewsany better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, ¹⁰ as it is written: ¹¹ “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.”

The failings of the followers was in their ability to love with all heart, all soul and all strength. There was no inner strength within them capable of giving all. Self-interest remained an issue because the heart had not changed.

Ezekiel 11:19 English Standard Version (ESV) And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,

Ezekiel 36:26 English Standard Version (ESV) And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

It was so important that Ezekiel repeated it twice with one exception, this new heart was one heart.

2 Corinthians 12:9 English Standard Version (ESV) But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

The sufficiency of grace is a mystery to the hurting and needful. Pain and suffering heightens self-interest. At the core of sin is selfishness. Paul had an affliction and prayed for its removal. This verse was the Lord’s answer.

Many of us pray for relief of those things that concern us, real or imagined. In those human conditions is a desire for relief and our first instinct is to find relief in self-effort.

Luke 4:23 English Standard Version (ESV) And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘“Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’”

“He has healed others, why not me?” That is the instinct of self-interest. It refuses to look to grace as a sufficient answer. What grace does above and beyond our suffering is masked by self-interest. Paul accepts the Word of the Lord and changes his attitude. There is more going on in Paul’s life than his particular ailment.

Have you ever noticed Paul’s greeting in his letters? Often times a partner is noted. There is Silvanus, Timothy and Sosthenes of which Timothy may be the best known to us. They were present to help Paul in his affliction, gracious gifts from God, sufficient unto the task at hand. Then there was Apollos.

1 Corinthians 3:6 English Standard Version (ESV) I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

Apollos was so well known in the early ministries that he had a following, not unlike some present day preachers.

1 Corinthians 4:6 English Standard Version (ESV) I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another.

His Word is sufficient.