If you’re an Evangelical Christian who grew up in the church, “trying to be good” probably feels like your default setting.
Brush your teeth while praying (because wasted time feels like wasted faithfulness). Apologize before being critiqued. Read the minor prophets and actually pretend to understand them. Smile at that one Christian dude who always interrupts people in small group because... Jesus said love your enemies.
One thing I know from years in the youth ministry trenches and talking to SO many students who struggled under the burden of their own unrighteousness: trying to be good can be a full-time job… and the pay is terrible.
We don’t talk about it often, but for most of us, moral performance feels like faithfulness. The trap wears the mask of the virtue.
The striving never stops. We keep score in our heads.
The quiet shame when we fail... that’s just what being a good Christian looks like, right?
Nobody ever says it out loud, but a lot of us function as if the Christian life is one long cosmic job interview, with God as the scary hiring manager. Your testimony is your résumé, and every sin is a typo you hope He doesn’t notice.
This is the sickness. And it hides itself behind words like righteousness.
Words so holy-sounding that we stop asking what they actually mean.
Words that make us feel small and accused even when we can’t quite say why.
Big church word. Long robes and Gregorian chants kind of word. Or… if you’re a youth group kid from the 80s, maybe a surfer word.
“Righteous, bro.” 🤙🏽
The question many Christians wonder deep down in their soul: what actually is righteousness?
Because if it’s just being good, being right, moral checklist stuff... then we’re all either crushing it with pride or drowning in shame.
Neither one smells like grace.
When “Good” Starts to Hurt
If you grew up religious, chances are righteousness was the gold medal of spirituality.
Be pure. Don't compromise. Make your theology and behavior march together like soldiers who've forgotten why they enlisted.
Don't screw up. Actually, don't even look like you might screw up in the near future. And for heaven's sake, don't doubt… or at the very least don't let anyone catch you doubting. Keep that stuff locked in.
And when you inevitably do screw up (because, you will)……. feel bad.
Feel very, very bad.
Maybe God will notice your regret and decide to love you again.
What a horrible theology. Unfortunately, it is far too common.
Some of us are still stuck in that loop.
We smile in small group. We keep up appearances. If someone notices we are struggling, we hope deep down that our sadness gets mistaken for godliness.
We ask ourselves… “If I am not good, and if people don’t see me as good… then what will become of me?”
I think we must start with a different question: What if righteousness was never about being “good” in the first place? What if it’s about… being close?
What if proximity is the whole point?
The Hebrew Word That Breaks the Cycle
Enter Tzedek.
![Hebrew Tora Quote: Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof - Justice Shall You Pursue!" Sticker for Sale by JMMJudaica | Redbubble](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!9yK1!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fde85f949-f943-4a75-b97b-0b59b9a69b22_600x600.jpeg "Hebrew Tora Quote: Tzedek, Tzedek Tirdof - Justice Shall You Pursue!" Sticker for Sale by JMMJudaica | Redbubble")
In our first GoodLion Podcast episode from years back, Dr. Tim Mackie breaks it open like a window in a dusty room.
No we did not book Tim on the show. We were too shy to ask, lol… so we just grabbed an epic clip from one of his sermons. Give the episode a listen!
In Hebrew, righteousness isn’t moral perfection or spiritual résumé padding.
It’s Tzedek — צֶדֶק — from a root that means rightness, justice, alignment.
That word justice means something in particular: relational justice.
A rightness that pulses through relationships like clean blood through a healthy body.
Again, our default setting is to think it’s all about being correct, but I deeply believe we’ve been wrong on this. The real point is actually being connected.
You literally can’t be righteous on your own.
Righteousness isn’t a score you achieve in private devotions.
You can’t polish it alone in a prayer closet and then display it framed on the wall for everyone to see.
It’s relational from the ground up!
It only exists between us and others.
It is both horizontal (relationship between us & neighbor) and vertical (relationship between man & God.)
There’s no such thing as a solo saint.
What Tim helped me understand is that to be righteous is to do right by the people you’re connected to.
Fidelity. Integrity. Love that shows up when it’s ANYTHING but convenient.
Love that holds eye contact through pain.
It’s parenting your kid with patience rather than frustration.
It’s refusing to humiliate your employee in the staff meeting, even when they messed up the project for everyone.
It’s texting your friend back when you’re exhausted, because you know they’re spiraling and you’re the only one who’s called them in weeks.
The behaviors vary. The heart stays the same.
I’m with you. I see you. I will not abandon this relationship.
That’s righteousness.
But…and this is critical—it never stops there.
Righteousness Doesn’t Stop at the Heart. It Moves the Hands.
My son Jack is four. Hilarious. Wild.
He’s often loud enough to summon angels, or terrify my neighbor’s roosters.
Like any four-year-old, he has his moments where he acts… let’s say, “less than pleasant”.
He refuses to listen, chucks toys across the room, and when I say “Jack, buddy, cut that out!” he looks me dead in the eye…. and does the EXACT opposite of what I asked.
You know….. Sanctification, in miniature!
One day he had one of those episodes. Full nuclear meltdown. Pushing every boundary, every button. And I knelt down and said—probably with more exhaustion than I meant to show…. “Jack... I love you.”
He looked up, a little teary, and said: “I love you too daddy... a whole lot.”
And then he paused.
“…I’m gonna try to listen.”
My heart! (Being a dad has wrecked me.)
Perfect? No. But moving? Yes. Right relationship pulls him towards me!
It means my son’s love for me, as messy and unformed as it is, leads somewhere. It reaches into his decisions, his impulses, his actions.
He doesn’t obey to earn my love. He obeys—sometimes clumsily—because he knows he’s loved.
That’s righteousness.
And I wonder how many of us have confused the order. We think righteousness is acting right so we can get right with God.
But Scripture flips it.
We get right with God.
We are embraced by Him.
And out of that embrace, the behavior starts to change.
Wait, So Are You Saying Behavior Doesn’t Matter?
Now….. I can hear the theological alarm bells from here.
“Hold up... what’s Aaron teaching these young people? That righteousness isn’t about rule-keeping? That behavior doesn’t matter?”
“Is this some kind of progressive free-for-all? Is Aaron... pro-sin?”
Far from it!
Joke’s on you… This framework has made me want to sin less! Not more.
As Paul would say: “Should we go on sinning? By no means!”
When I see righteousness as relationship rather than ONLY regulation, it pulls me toward God instead of pushing me into shame or performance.
The bar doesn't get lower…. rather, the goal shifts entirely! You're not trying to avoid failure anymore! You're protecting something sacred!
You’re literally fighting for something that matters so much more than our self-righteous attempts at perfection!
This view properly puts the horse before the cart where it belongs.
We don’t behave so that we can earn belonging.
No, we belong because we are loved so much so that Christ hung on a wooden cross to prove it.
Once we get this… slowly, truly, painfully, beautifully... we begin to behave like someone who does.
The Ache Has a Name.
You know that knot you feel after a falling out with someone you love? That gnawing “not-rightness”?
That’s what the Bible calls unrighteousness.
That deep, sick feeling that we feel when there’s a fracture in the relationship that we just cannot fix.
When you feel that ache in your soul, that hunger to be whole, I would argue that, despite our tendency to think that this is a weakness, or simply being dramatic, the reality is we’re actually tasting the very thing that Yahweh himself longs for!
We were made for Tzedek. Right relationships with God, others, and ourselves.
And when that gets restored, behavior follows like a current, not a contract. The heart gets set right first. Everything else flows from there!
You don’t approach stealing as something to be avoided because it’s rule number eight in the Ten Commandments...
You approach it as something you would be horrified to do because you love the One who has given all, and you would hate to hurt Him, or any of his children by robbing them of what God has given.
You choose to live a life free from lies… and you don’t do it for the sake of reputation or morality. You do it because you realize that intimacy cannot breathe without truth, and, because you know the dastardly father of all lies wants to suffocate our relationships.
You start forgiving people who don’t deserve it, because you know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that same cosmically absurd mercy.
God Isn’t Asking You to Earn Righteousness
Some of you need to hear this part clearly:
We’re not the ones who fix the separation.
God is.
He’s not waiting for you to cry hard enough, try hard enough, or punish yourself long enough. He already came running. Already did the mending. Already whispered across the cosmos, “It is finished.”
The Cross was God refusing to let the distance stand. It was the violent, bloody, unbearable cost of saying “I will not lose you.” Jesus didn’t show up to improve your performance metrics. He came to drag you out of the grave.
If you’re reading this assuming that Jesus’ goal is to make you a better person… I’d urge you to throw that view out the theological window.
Our Father has no interest in “better” for the sake of better.
He wants you back from the muddy pit.
He wants to life you out of the mud, embrace you, clean you up, embrace you again, and lead you into a beautiful, gentle process of restoring what is broken.
This is why we must be clear with people: religious performance is not discipleship!
Discipleship is following the risen King, and leaning on His power completely, trusting His strength to be stronger than our weakness. When the King says, “If you love me, then keep my commandments,” we are inspired rather than discouraged… because we truly do love the King!
Through Jesus, His righteousness becomes your own!! It is NOT because you deserved it, but because He wouldn’t let the distance between you and Him remain.
He carried the shame, the failure, the parts of you that you still hide. He took them into the grave, and He rose with your name burning in His heart.
One Last Thing (for the ones still hurting)
If you’re walking with a limp...
If you’ve been hiding behind “quiet times” because you’re afraid God’s face has changed...
If you’ve memorized all the right answers but feel hollow when you say them...
Then hear this:
Righteousness isn’t about your ability to get things right.
It’s about the God who refuses to leave you wrong.
It’s about the One who smears mud on your eyes and says, “Go. Wash. Come back seeing.”
I believe He wants us to see clearly. He wants us to see Him, and He wants us to see the truth.
We were never expected to fix ourselves.
We are lovingly invited to come home to the One who promises to finish what He began.
Listen to the episode: “What Even IS Righteousness?” ft. Tim Mackie – The GoodLion Podcast
22 minutes of heart, humor, and Hebrew that might just rewire your theology.
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JOIN THE MISSION OF GOODLION MINISTRIES
If this work has fed you, challenged you, or pushed you closer to Jesus, then I need your help!
I’m Aaron, a former long-time church staff pastor now doing ministry out in the wild. Since 2018, I’ve been building GoodLion Ministries to help young adults follow Jesus deeply in a post-modern, post-Christian age that pulls them in a thousand directions.
On Sunday evenings, I lead the GoodLion School of Discipleship, a multi-year formation program where young adults wrestle with Scripture, ask hard questions, and build a faith that can handle doubt and chaos. Through this work, I watch students move from confusion to clarity, from fear to faithfulness, from being spiritually adrift to knowing how to walk with Jesus in real life.
I also write here on Substack, mentor young leaders, and create resources for people who want substance over hype.
Our mission is simple: We believe in Jesus, the King who is not safe but is very good. We’re here for the doubters, the deconstructors, the burnt-out ministers, the church kids haunted by legalism, and anyone tired of shallow faith.
Here’s the reality: I’m bivocational. For years, I’ve supported my family through freelance work while building this ministry in every spare hour I can find. My goal is to transition to doing this work full time so I can expand the School, write more, travel to teach, raise up more leaders, and serve every single person who need what GoodLion offers.
This is my life’s work. For nearly 20 years, I’ve been helping Gen Z learn to think deeply, wrestle honestly, and follow Jesus in a world that tries to pull them apart.
If you believe this work matters, I invite you partner with me! This is not a side hustle for me. This is a mission. Even $10/month helps me teach more, write more, and disciple more young adults who genuinely need it.
👉 Support GoodLion Ministries Here
Thank you for walking with me.
– Aaron
Links
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🎓 GoodLion School of Discipleship
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