I had just read something humbling in my Bible that morning. I reminded myself of the Christ's sacrifice for my BIG sin. But somehow that wasn't enough to stop me from obsessing over everyone else's sin.
So what do you do to keep self-rightousness at bay?
First we must understand where is came from. This is different for situations and people's personalities, but I somehow this plagues us all. So why?
We (I) forget.
Am I right? Sometimes I find myself with my Bible open in my lap and I yell at my mother for barging in on my "time with the Lord". Less than a breath is all it takes for me.
Or I hear a wonderful sermon about how heavy my own sin is and I moments after I give a sarcastic comeback to a friend that gets a lot of laughs, but not a lot of dignity.
Or I post a Spurgeon quote or Gospel Coalition article on Facebook, only to scroll down and roll my eyes at someone else's "hypocritcal" lifestyle, maybe even comment with some "convicting" truth to embarass them.
Or I refuse to share the truth of the Gospel in a class discussion because I wouldn't want to be misinterpreted and spread "heresy". But really I just wouldn't want to seem unintelligent.
This list could go on for days. Even in the midst of reminding ourselves of the Gospel. We forget. I forget.
We (I) don't pray.
This is another big one for me. I'm pretty good about remaining in the Word, but I forget that the Holy Spirit is in me. GOD is in me. I can intellectually understand that God isn't a genie, an Inquisitor, or a distant God, but in practice I tell a different story. I don't talk to God, I don't pray for others more than once in a blue moon. I can't possibly sympathize with others when I refuse to allow God to soften my heart to them.
We are (I am) simply too in love with our (my) sin.
For me, my self-righteousness comes from wanting to be intelligent. I love being the one in the room that knows about the Old Testament or Church History. I love being smart. I love dumbfounding ignorant people. If I do try to teach people what I know, it's often simply to make myself more impressive, not to help them grow in their understanding of who Christ is. This one involves looking outward too often.
Another form is what I call "morbidly introspective". This one is tricky. It's the self-righteousness that causes us to see our sin as SO big, but view Christ as very small. It's the cause of spiritual depression. "Christ just needs to die on the cross one more time, that last one wasn't enough." This one involves looking inward too severely.
Either way, we are thinking of ourselves. True humilty is not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less. Look up, not out or in.
We (I) don't like to repent.
I think many of us are under the allusion that in order to "represent" Christ we must always be perfect. So we never apologize to lost people when we mess up because then "they'd know we weren't perfect and Christians would look bad". No! If we were never perfect to GET our salvation, then why would we need to be perfect to maintain it? We're preaching with those actions that lost people must be perfect to be saved; directly contrary to the Gospel. There have been some great moments where I have been able to apologize to unsuspecting people, and got to help the, realize who Christians really were. The world tell us to never apologize, the Gospel does.
Even amongst believers we rarely repent. We just maintaint that polite facade that will never go deeper than that. That 's not the Gospel! We are not separate individuals, we are Christ's Church! Or with personal sins that don't affect others directly. The strongest friendships I have had were with Sisters who knew the junk going on in my mind, and vice verca. Actually being able to help in the process of sanctification. Being told to shut up, being called out. It's pretty effective in cooling self-righteousness. Beyond just having a good time with people who were also Christians doing "Christian" things in a "Christian" bubble, but actually growing in the likeness of Christ WITH others doing the same thing. Together. In front of lost people. What?? Yeah.
I often sympathize with Peter in the Gospel accounts. Driven by his emotions, acts and speaks without thinking, has so much potential but is often his own worst enemy. I find comfort that Christ loved him dearly yet firmly. One moment he was professing Christ, the next Christ called him Satan. Another time he refuses to believe he could deny Christ, and then he did it THREE times (that's two more times than Judas, who knew exactly what he was doing). Another time he's walking on water, then he's sinking. He is a spiritual rollar coaster if there ever was one. Another time he's eating with Gentiles, still another time he's preaching circumcision. I could go onnnnn. Yet Jesus out of His goodness made him a leader in the Church.
There is hope. Our hope was never in ourselves, but always in Christ, the starter and perfecter of our faith. Remember.
In Christ.