self righteousness on Renewal

Dear Lord, I am filled with anger born of frustration. I confess I know not whether my anger is of you. I just know I am filled with hope, which makes me angry that others are not so filled. Take away...

God of lasting forgiveness, You are not surprised to find us standing before Your throne once again, asking for Your forgiveness. It’s true, Father: we have sinned again. In our thinking, in our doing...

Jesus insists on this willingness to change, because he knows that self-righteousness will separate us from God forever. We’re all at high risk of becoming sick with self-righteousness, and if we don’...

At the core of every project of self-salvation is the staunch unwillingness to believe that God’s love and forgiveness can be unmerited. Those who would try and save themselves prefer work to rest, ef...

Call to Confession: The prophet asks the Lord’s people, “But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap.” ...

Loving and gracious God, we know we do not always live the life to which we are called: We turn away from You, and from our true selves. You command us to shine Your light, but we often hide it instea...

Preaching Commentary Context Assyria the Destroyer of the Northern Kingdom It is important to remember that in addition to there being seventeen books of prophecy in the Old Testament, each one of...

My devotion to niceness has won me a lot of acceptance and praise, but it has also inhibited my courage, fed my self-righteousness, encouraged my inauthenticity, and produced in me a flimsy sweetness ...

In spinning a robe of your own righteousness, before the sun goes down you will find it all unraveled.

When a person has lost Christ, he must fall into the confidence of his own works…. Take great care that no one goes to mass trusting in confession, or prayer, or self-preparation; but lacking confiden...

This is one of Jesus’ most vivid parables. He paints a dramatic picture of two figures, with a twist to upend his hearer’s expectations. While the context of this passage involves the dynamics of an a...

Many have passed the rocks of gross sins - who have suffered shipwreck upon the sands of self-righteousness.

Stop being so sure that you are always right, and others wrong. Don't trust your own opinion, when you find it contrary to that of older men, and especially to that of your own parents. Age gives ...

Written almost a hundred years ago, this excerpt from the Reverend John W. Rilling points out one of the main reasons we continue to observe Lent, a period of repentance and discipline for many who ca...

This is one of Jesus’ most vivid parables. He paints a dramatic picture of two figures, with a twist to upend his hearer’s expectations. While the context of this passage involves the dynamics of an a...

Self-righteousness is a sense of moral superiority that appoints us as prosecutor of other people’s sinfulness. We relate to others as if we are incapable of the sins they commit. Self-righteousness w...

That which of all things unfits man for the reception of Christ as a Savior, is not gross profligacy and outward, vehement transgression, but it is self-complacency, fatal self-righteousness and self-...

An obsession with righteousness (leading invariably to self-righteousness) is the normal human condition.

A taste of righteousness can be easily perverted into an overweening sense of self-righteousness and judgmentalism.

Moralistic behavior change done for one's self simply manipulates and leverages radical selfishness without challenging it.

Context Assyria the Destroyer of the Northern Kingdom It is important to remember that in addition to there being seventeen books of prophecy in the Old Testament, each one of these books takes thei...

When you are smashing monuments, save the pedestals they always come in handy.

Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.

Pop psychology is wrong when it tells you to look inside yourself and find your value. The magazines are wrong when they suggest you are only as good as you are thin, muscular, pimple-free, or perfume...

The self-righteous never apologize.

Biblically, the word righteous means approved by God. It’s something God judges as good or right. To be self-righteous, then, simply means we’ve met that standard in our own eyes. As we’ll see, this i...

The Golden Result is a corollary to the Golden Rule, which calls us to do to others as we would have them do to us. The Golden Result says that people will usually treat us as we treat them. If we bla...

Self-righteousness exclaims, “I will not be saved in God’s way; I will make a new road to heaven; I will not bow before God’s grace; I will not accept the atonement which God has wrought out in the pe...

Most of us use ‘I’m waiting for God to reveal His calling on my life’ as a means of avoiding action. Did you hear God calling you to sit in front of the television yesterday? Or to go on your last vac...

It is easier to cry against one-thousand sins of others than to kill one of your own.