Can You Grow Righteous?

You can grow in faith and love. But can you grow in righteousness? No. Righteousness (right standing with God) is a gift you received when you were born again and washed in the blood of Jesus. You can grow in the knowledge of your gift of righteousness, but you can never be more or less righteous (in right standing with God) than when you accepted Jesus as you Lord and Savior! Please notice I said 'more or less'. In other words, you do things right and good in your eyes doesn't make you 'righteous'. Neither are you less righteous when you mess up!

From BibleGateway.com. Romans 5:17  For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man,(talking about Adam here), how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

Grace means 'unmerited favor'. So God provides us with abundant grace. God provides us with abundant unmerited favor. Righteousness means 'right standing with God'.  Then through Jesus we got a gift. The gift of being in 'right standing with God'! So we have abundant unmerited favor and we will always be in right standing with God! Now how awesome is that?