In the Book of Romans Paul sums up todays problem in a reference to the infamously RELIGEOUS Jews of his day; “My heart’s desire and prayer for them is for their salvation…for they have a zeal for God…but not according to knowledge. Seeking to establish their own righteousness, the Jews did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God, for Christ is the end of the law.”  Paul is saying that the Jews’ primary problem is that they honestly felt that they could muster up enough of their own righteousness—somehow—someway to make themselves completely acceptable to God—without any help from Jesus. 

 

There are still MANY people today who think their good upright moral life will lead them through Heaven’s Gate when they leave this earth.  They are our neighbors, co-workers and our friends, they’re kind, helpful, hard-working—they are family-oriented. They are fun to be with and keep their lawn mowed. They always put out the flag on the 4th of July. They coach little league or serve as a den mother for the brownie troop. They give to the United Way. They run in 5k’s to help end breast cancer. They are in the booster club and always lend a hand at school events.  These are the exemplary people in the community.  BUT, if we don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ, these good deeds are like filthy rags!

 

So why are people chasing after the next opportunity to do more OR why are people satisfied thinking they have done enough?  I believe it is because everyone is comparing themselves to the Jones’s.  When we compare ourselves to the extremely bad people in society we place ourselves a little higher on the good scale.  When we judgmentally look at how bad others are doing and pride fully look at how well we are doing, we can really boost ourselves way up there on the good scale!  The terrible flaw with this kind of thinking is that we should not be comparing our “righteousness” to others.  Ecc. 7:20, Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins.

 

In the comparing thoughts of our mind we might think that we ACT good; we DO good; and we may LOOK good to the HUMAN eye—but the Bible says we are ALL flawed and fallen—sinful beings who need saving.  And it is a huge hit in our pride department when we have to admit that we cannot do it on our own, that we need someone to help us.  But the Bible is very clear on that, to get to Heaven we need to abandon OUR righteousness and RECEIVE Christ’s righteousness.

 

That is where you can understand the flaw in human thinking.  When we are continually comparing ourselves to others to justify how we are doing, we are falling further away from the standard.  The standard that we have to compare ourselves to is the righteousness of Christ.  The only way to get to Heaven is to clothe ourselves in Jesus’ righteousness.   Yet, every day every one of us falls short of His holy standard. Perhaps the worst insult we send God’s way is our prideful assumptions that, on our own, we can be good enough to enter His holy presence.

 

We cannot prepare our soul for Heaven on our own, we do need help from the Holy Spirit.  There are two verses that come to mind that are necessary, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead…THEN…you will be saved…for with the heart man believes….resulting in righteousness and with the mouth he confesses resulting in salvation.” And, “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

 

Pride more than unbelief separates more people from a saving relationship with Christ.  When the King of Babylon pride fully bragged about his accomplishments without giving credit to God, he was banished into the woods to live as an animal for seven years.  We need to realize that all there is, all we have, and all that will be is because of God, for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.”

 

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