Self-made?

"But what do you think? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'My son go, work in the vineyards today.' He answered, "I don't want to! Yet later he changed his mind and went. Then the man went to the other and said the same thing. "I will sir' he answered But he didn't go.

Which of the two did his father's will?" "The first" they said. Jesus said to them, "I assure you; Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you!" Matthew 21: 28-31

 Jesus was showing the Pharisees and Scribes that the wayward, the tax collectors and prostitutes were accepting the truth and being saved when these 'righteous ones' were missing the boat.

Self-righteousness stinks, is Pharisaical, rigid and causes the one who has it to miss freedom offered.

How do we know we are self-righteous? We are judgemental, we spend a lot of time in self-satisfaction, we have walls that keep grace out. In fact we do not seek grace.

Jesus, the very one who was righteous, could not get into the hearts and lives of the self-righteous, they were content in their own experience and rejected freedom, truth and life.

Self-righteousness can keep us away from church, away from the lost, away from the Spirit of God. I know people who have decided God does not exist and they are very self-righteous in their belief. They are 'self-made' individuals.

I watched an interview of an atheist before he died. He was asked if it bothered Him that Christians were trying to 'save' him now he was dying. He was not interested. The thing that really hit me and made me sad was, he was not ready to die, he did not want to die, but he did die and now he knows, with all certainty that his self-righteousness deceived him and he will know there is no way back.

There is only one source of truth, the bible. No matter what we think, no matter how clever we become in our own minds, the truth is the truth. There is a God, and we are not Him.