“For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face.”
– Psalm 11:7
God’s righteousness, our righteousness, the righteous things we do to delight in God and to delight God, these things are all wonderfully interconnected…
God is perfectly righteous. He does only right things and can do no wrong things. It’s simply His nature to be righteous. There is no shadow of darkness or hint of sin in God. Because He’s perfectly righteous, God loves when those made in His image do righteous deeds. He loves it when you do the right thing. He loves it when you concern yourself with intentionally doing what’s truly right, not simply what’s convenient, comfortable, cheap, easy, respectable, or enjoyable. God delights in your good deeds, they’re a source of pleasure to Him.
That doesn’t mean that your good deeds make you righteous. No amount of righteous deeds could ever make us righteous enough to match God’s perfect righteousness. No amount of good deeds could ever make you “upright” either. Thankfully, when you trust in Jesus, His perfect righteousness as the sinless Son of God is credited to your account. You’re declared upright by the Lord. You aren’t made upright by your righteous deeds, but Christ has made you upright by His work on the cross. Because you’re upright, you should be eager to do righteous deeds.
It’s the delight of those made righteous by God’s grace to do righteous deeds, not to earn His blessing, but simply to delight in delighting God and to glory in glorifying God. As a follower of Jesus, made upright in Him, the promise of this verse is that one day you’ll see the face of God. That’s a wonderful promise for you! One day, you’ll see the face of God and it will be a face of radiant with joy and delight because of the righteousness of Christ in you and the righteous deeds you’ve done in Christ’s name.