Thoughts from "The Double-Reach of Self-Righteousness" by Tullian Tchividjian

Read the full blog HERE.

Tullian points out,

"the thing that gets in the way of our love for God and a deep appreciation of his grace is not so much our unrighteous badness but our self-righteous goodness."

He goes on to say,

"...it’s always the immoral person that gets the Gospel before the moral person. It’s the prostitute who understands grace; it’s the Pharisee who doesn’t. It’s the unrighteous younger brother who gets it before the self-righteous older brother.

There is, however, another side to self-righteousness that younger-brother types need to be careful of. There’s an equally dangerous form of self-righteousness that plagues the unconventional, the liberal, and the non-religious types. We “authentic”, anti-legalists can become just as guilty of legalism in the opposite direction. What do I mean?

It’s simple: we become self-righteous against those who are self-righteous. Many younger evangelicals today are reacting to their parents’ conservative, buttoned-down, rule-keeping flavor of “older brother religion” with a type of liberal, untucked, rule-breaking flavor of “younger brother irreligion” which screams, “That’s right, I know I don’t have it all together and you think you do; I know I’m not good and you think you are. That makes me better than you.”

See the irony?

In other words, they’re proud that they’re not self-righteous! Hmmm…"

He concludes,

"So the question is not whether you are self-righteous, but rather, in which direction does your self-righteousness lean? ...Thankfully, while our self-righteousness reaches far, God’s grace reaches farther. And the good news is, that it reaches in both directions!"

I, again, have reprinted a good portion of this blog post for you, but eagerly encourage you to hit the link above and read it in its entirity to capture the full weight of the appeal being made  Hopefully this taste has whetted your appetite for the full meal.. Tullian has a profound gift for preaching the Gospel's power to release us, free us, forgive us, and empower us to honor God with our lives..

The love of God in the Gospel inspires reciprocal love which ends in devotion and displays of grand romantical gesture.  Attempting to love Him only by the Law often provokes jealousy, pride, and boastful works on which confidence is claimed apart from Christ -- whether in pridefully declaring that "no one's perfect" as a backhanded confidence in one's sinfulness or by pridefully declaring that "no one else is perfect" as a ignorant confidence in one's sinlessness.