Are You Self-Righteous or Righteous - Positive Motivation

0:00Here are a few questions to ask yourself to see if you're self-righteous or truly righteous. When you do good things such as go to church, help out a neighbor or give money, do you do that so others will see? Do you feel that the good things you do earn you love and favor from God? Do you think that you're better than the people around you? If you find that you are self-righteous, the great news is that there is a way forward. While the Pharisees and Sadducees get a bad rap, they were not all self-righteous. In the book of John, there is a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who came to Jesus in secret because he did not want any of his fellow Pharisees to see him coming to Jesus. He was afraid of man, but by the end of the book of John, you see a complete change in Nicodemus. He takes the body of Jesus down from the cross after the crucifixion and prepares it for

1:01burial. He goes from worrying about what other men will think, which is self-righteous, to worrying about what God thinks, which is true righteousness. If the heart of a man can be changed from one of the most self-righteous groups ever to walk the face of the earth, he can also change your heart. Just as the tax collector in Luke 18 came before the Lord beating his chest and asking for mercy, you do the same. Now first Timothy chapter 4 verse 8 says, for bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promised of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. A true believer of Jesus Christ will strive to live a godly life. But if you look at the world today, godliness is not a priority for a lot of people.

2:02Godliness is not sought after by a lot of people today, even in the church. And you see the devil has clearly deceived a lot of people to believe one particular lie, a lie that we can be righteous on our own. The enemy wants us to believe that we can operate independently. The enemy has lied to people by telling them that they can live independently of God. But this isn't true. Living in such a manner is called self-righteousness. In the Bible, the Pharisees and Sadducees oppose Jesus Christ so fiercely because they thought they were righteous. They were self-righteous. They were righteous in their own eyes. And Jesus was a problem to this group of people because he taught about repentance. He taught about righteousness according to God's standard, not man's standard. And so every true believer of Jesus Christ strives to live a godly life.

3:07A life according to the word of the Lord, not their own personal standards. Now let me go further to clarify some of the hallmarks of a true believer. A true believer in Jesus Christ exercises practical faith, meaning that they walk by faith and not by sight. And faith doesn't mean you ignore facts. No, faith means that you trust in God despite what the facts say. A true believer in Jesus Christ perseveres in prayer because prayer to a Christian is like blood to the body. That's our lifeline. That's why the Bible tells us to pray always and to pray without ceasing. When we think of running away from God, we often think of someone running away by doing bad things. People run away from God in very different ways.

4:08They do this through sin and disobedience. And it's in their sin of committing adultery, stealing or gossiping about others or whatever it may be. It's in doing these things that they run away from the Lord. While all of this is true, there is an equally dangerous way to run away from God that we often overlook. And that is running away from God by doing good things and thinking we are better than those around us. Now we can believe that we have earned the favor of God by doing good things, but this is not how God works. No one can earn the favor of God. No one can earn mercy. No one can earn a blessing. All of these things are freely given to us by the Lord because of his great love. For anyone who thinks they can earn God's favor or love because of the things they do. This is called self-righteousness.

5:09Self-righteous people are less concerned about their hearts and what God sees and more about how others view their actions. Satan will take bad things and dress them up like a Trojan horse to make you think they are a good gift. The devil not only dresses up bad things to make them look good, but he uses good things to get the bad out of you. The devil will often seek to enter our lives as something good such as a hobby or activity. For example, maybe you set up lunch with a coworker. That's not a bad thing. As a matter of fact, it can even be a good thing. However, Satan can use lunch breaks between male and female coworkers to lead to evil. This can open the door to adultery. While there's nothing wrong with two people eating lunch, Satan can use that for his evil purposes. Satan will do the same thing with entertainment. God allows us to make movies and music so it would lead to the worship of him.

6:13There's nothing wrong with watching movies and listening to music. However, movies with sexually stimulating imagery or music with sexually seductive lyrics can open the door to pornography or sexual immorality. Satan will dress up movies and music as a Trojan horse, but then will attack when we let him in the front door. We often make the mistake of taking good things and making them a God thing. We lift up the good things that God has made and make them ultimate things in our life. Satan has won the battle when we do that. For example, socializing is a great thing. God created us to be people who desire relationships. It is a good gift from God. The problem becomes when we make this good thing and ultimate thing and replace God. When those friends we socialize with take the place of God, we have a problem. When we spend more and more time with them and less and less time with God, we have made

7:15a good thing, a God thing. We have put his good gift in the place of God. Another example of this is food. Food is a great gift from God. However, we should not live a life of continual excess. While there are appointed times to feast, our lifestyle should not be one of continual feasting. When we constantly overeat, we are taking something God meant for good and using it for evil. This is gluttony and Satan is satisfied with this because his Trojan horse worked. Those who are truly righteous do good out of the love for God. They have a true purity, holiness and righteousness. They know there is nothing they can ever do to earn the love of God. They have sin rooted deep in their heart. However, they confess that to God and know that God has made a way to take that sin

8:18away through Jesus Christ. Even due to that love, they follow the commands of God. Not so they can be seen by others, but because God's grace and mercy runs deep for them.