How to Define Righteousness (Deuteronomy 12:8)

You shall not do according to all that we are doing here today, everyone doing whatever is right in his own eyes.
—Deuteronomy 12:8

This verse is such a warning and word of caution that we see at strategic points throughout the history of God’s people.

It summarizes what we see in the book of Judges: everyone was doing what was right in their own eyes. Judges is a horrifying book in the sense that it depicts such evil as people do what is right in their own eyes.

In this way, Deuteronomy 12:8 is a reminder to you and me today not to live according to what is right in our own eyes. This goes all the way back to Genesis 3 and the entrance of sin into the world. It is never good; it is deadly when men and women decide they know better than God what is right and good.

I could list so many examples right now of the way this is playing out in the culture around me—all kinds of redefinitions of right and good according to what men and women think is right instead of what God says is right and good. The reality is that Deuteronomy 12:8 is not just speaking to the culture around us. God is speaking to us through it. He is calling us to conform our lives to what is right according to his Word.

So, in a fresh way today, I want to encourage you to lay aside all your ideas of what is right and good and submit to what God’s Word says is right and good. Look at the world around you, at your life, and at every choice you make through the lens of what God sees and what God says in his Word about righteousness and goodness.

Do not get caught up in a world conformed to the pattern of a culture that redefines right and good according to our own eyes, desires, and perspectives.

God, help us today to live according to what is right in your eyes, not according to what is right in our eyes. God, help us to see with your eyes. Help us to see everything in our lives and in the world through the lens of your Word and what you say is right and good and just and true.

God, please help us to run from every temptation—just like Adam and Eve faced in Genesis 3—to redefine what is right and good for us based on what we want or what we think.

And God, we pray that you would help us to stand and work for what you say is right and good in your Word, even when that is hard to do in the world around us. God, help us not to be conformed to the pattern of this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and to encourage others in ways that are right and good according to your Word.

God, we pray that our words today would be saturated with the truth of your Word and what you say is right and good. Help us to spur other brothers and sisters in Christ toward that which is right and good in your eyes, and help us to spread the good news of your goodness and righteousness to people around us who do not know you.

A Prayer for the Tsun-Lao People

And we pray for this, God, for the spread of your goodness and righteousness to people around the world. We pray for the Tsun-Lao people of Vietnam today. Please, God, we intercede for this small people group, made up largely of followers of ethnic religions, most of these men, women, and children having never heard the goodness of your love in Jesus.

We pray for the spread of the gospel to the Tsun-Lao people, and we pray that you would help us to live for what is right and good in your eyes, which we know is the spread of your gospel right around us and to the ends of the earth.

Oh God, we pray all this according to your Word, which is right and good. In Jesus’ name, amen.