One of the most sneaky sins is the sin of self-righteousness. It’s self-deceiving and self-destructive.
It can easily deceive us, because righteousness is good. We want to be righteous. We are told to seek righteousness. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5: 6) The Bible says “Be ye holy, for I am holy.” – I Peter 1:16 Throughout the Bible, we are told that God is righteous.
Certainly, true righteousness is something that we want.
What we must guard our hearts against is distorted righteousness.
In the Old Testament, as the Israelites were about to go in to possess the land, He had promised them, God warned His people against this sin: “Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the Lord thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land:” (Deuteronomy 9:4)
Distorted righteousness leads us to believe we are more righteous than others – we are more righteousness because we go to church, our church is more righteous than any other church. Many churches, pastors, and church member are oblivious to their sin of self-righteous. How many have accepted the title “Great man (or woman) of God”, secretly feeling self-righteous. It’s thinking how great we are, or what we have done for God.
Distorted righteousness can lead to believe that we can stand on our own righteousness – that we are righteous on our own, and we don’t need God’s righteousness.
This is self-deceiving. It blinds you to your own sins. It closes you off from growth. It is not honest with God. It blinds you to your dependency on God. We don’t see our own sins. We exault ourselves and dimmish others – you are more righteous than them. don’t see that we are diminishing others so that we can feel good about ourselves. We can’t get better if we don’t see our need to change.
Guard against becoming self-righteous like as in Matthew 23:23-24:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.”
True righteousness of justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
True righteous will show through love of God and love of your neighbor.