Righteousness?
Do you recall that I once wrote an article on grace and discipline? How can we determine just how holy we need to be? Or how righteous? When God calls us to righteousness, how can we BE righteous without seeming SELF Righteous? This is a big issue for me. I feel like frequently we Christians condemn other people because they are zealous for the Lord, and righteous in their deed, and we perceive them as self righteous because they are better behaved than us. Personally I think that the Lord would have all of us more righteous, more deliberate for Him, more zealous. Not lukewarm. SO, how do we become righteous vessels without self righteousness? How can we be zealous without becoming prideful? And what should we say to brothers and sisters who have lots of knowledge, live a righteous life, set apart, but perhaps a bit prideful?
What is the difference between righteousness, and self righteousness? How can that difference be expressed to the public?
Anybody??
Anybody got any answers for me?
Meg
May 26th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Hi Meg,
The Bible is clear on the objective/standard we are to live up to:
"But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." (1 Peter 1:15-16)
Dropping the standard any lower is sin. Will we ever attain unto this objective? Not in this life, but we are to keep it before our eyes; we are to strive for pure holiness.
How do we do this without the sin of pride? By the power of the Holy Ghost. By abiding in Christ. By continually subjecting ourselves to the will of God and putting all thoughts, words, and actions in submission to Him. Only then will we truly be meek and humble, as the Bible commands us to be. Again, will we always succeed? Not by a long shot, but the standard remains, and don't worry, "His grace is sufficient for us" (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Self-righteousness is a righteousness that is created by Man; as in his own standard. Godly righteousness is a righteousness that is based on the Word of God.
How do we exercise this godly righteousness in public without them slandering us as self-righteous? That's a tough one because, for the most part, the public is ungodly and want no part of God's standard of holiness. So when faced with a child of God who is upright and righteous, they either have to admit that the Christian is truly holy and they are wicked and ungodly (not very likely), or they have to slander the righteous soul by calling him/her a self-righteous hypocrite. It is with this theme in mind that the apostle Paul wrote:
"But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man." (1 Corinthians 2:15)
Better interpreted, this verse is "…he himself is judged RIGHTLY of no man."
Pride is a terrible sin which snares many a saint (you can count me in I'm afraid). Abiding in Christ and living in total submission to God is our only hope.
"Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time." (1 Peter 5:5-6)
May 26th, 2005 at 9:05 pm
by not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing?
May 28th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Hi Meg,
Haven't been around the blog world lately, just don't have the time. I've missed reading your posts… hope I'll find the time to catch up on them.
The rule of thumb for me when dealing with others has always been… do their actions convict or condemn me?
The Bible tells us clearly that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Therefore if someone takes a stand on any matter that convicts me and hopefully leads me to repentance, they have displayed a Godly righteousness. But if their actions or attitude make me feel condemned, I believe that sin is involved but most likely it is the sin of self-righteousness on their part.
Does that make sense? I hope so… we can also look at our attitude and actions from this perspective. Have I been instrumental in leading people to repentance or do my words and actions just condemn them?
June 3rd, 2005 at 10:06 am
Meg, there is no way we will attain righteousness in this life. You know it and I know it. But there is also no excuse for our sinfulness and our willful rebellion against Him.
Pride is an interesting sin. It takes many shapes. It can cause us to be zealous about something when we aren't familiar enough to have a proper opinion. To use a poor sports analogy, I may be convinced that Yao Ming is the best NBA player and scream it from every rooftop, but if all I know about Yao is that he is tall and from China then I have no business being too zealous.
I see this attitude in folks like televangelists. Some claim to know all the answers despite no being able to prove those answers by anything more than "The Lord revealed it to me." Their pride fuels their zealotry, but their error undermines their credibility. It's a tricky point.
Otherwise I'll agree with Rand (if I'm actually allowed to agree with Rand!
) about the power of the Holy Spirit being the only way. I'll write about the more practical ways at Attention Span once I get some serious time.
December 18th, 2006 at 11:53 am
Hey Meg,
I know, the response is late, but I came across your blog today after I google-searched “self righteousness.” I feel like I may have that problem and I’m trying to learn more myself. What I learned so far is that we can begin to think that we are righteous based on the people around us. We compare ourselves and think we are better if we are doing more good or less bad. Luke 18
says:
9To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10″Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about[a] himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13″But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14″I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
There is no doubt that the Pharisee was doing the things that he claimed. The problem was that he didn’t compare himself to the standard that God has set (Jesus). If he did, he would have realized how unrighteous he really was. Matthew 5 says:
3″Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
We are all truly poor in spirit, but this verse is referring to those who know that they are poor in spirit. The tax collector in Luke 18 knew that he was poor in spirit, so he knew he needed help.
I can probably summarize by saying, focus on Jesus, not others. Even when you see someone behaving in a self-righteous manner, you can become guilty of the same sin if you condemn them. The better thing to do is probably to get them to focus on Jesus.
December 18th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
THank you for stopping by. I check the comments even if it is much later than the post. I am glad to see someone still reads what I write.
I have come to some resolve about the issue of late. I feel the Lord is teaching me what real humility is about. It isn’t comparison between believers but comparison to Christ, whose perfect example I regularly fall far short of.
Peace in His Name,
Mrs. Meg Logan
February 26th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Hi Meg,
God is certainly doing something to us, isn’t He? I agree with your last statement about the humility and comparing ourselves only to Jesus.
I too just came upon your website searching for self-righteousness!
Another thing I would like to add that the Lord revealed to me, is that our country is founded upon the Bill of Rights. But our culture has taken this to such a far extent, that we are constantly demanding our ‘rights’. People expect their rights to be met! At almost no cost to them. We stop comparing ourselves with Christ and end up joining the secular world…. without even realizing it. We have slidden into a place of great expectation and self-righteousness. I myself discovered I have even hidden some things from myself… I know they exist, but I didn’t want to let go of them. My own self-righteousness and pride.
I think if we come to the realization that we should only compare ourselves to Christ…. then when we are confronted by non-believers or believers, we will NOT get defensive… but truely exhibit the being of Christ. And whatever their response is, we do not take personal offense, we don’t react. And we don’t necessarily preach either. We just be Christ with skin on, knowing we can’t change everybody’s thinking. We can be satisfied that our actions will speak louder than our words.
Does this make sense? I hope so. I’m just learning this all myself
Thanks, Meg, for creating a great question!
Pam