Imposter

Self-righteousness has deep talons.

The self-righteous person minimizes his sin. "It was only this one time; I'm much better than that most of the time."

The self-righteousness person compares their sin to other's sin. "I may struggle here and there, but these other people have so much more to work on."

The self-righteous person tries to outperform his sin. "I may fail once in a while, but look at all the great things I've done. My performance outshines any wrongs I've done."

The self-righteous person minimizes the cross of Christ. "Jesus paid the ultimate price for my sin, but I have overcome many sins after I trusted in Him."

The self-righteous person dampens God's holiness. "God can see I'm trying hard; he'll overlook my failures."

Do any of these sound familiar to your heart? The truth is that most of us battle with self-righteousness. The laughable thing is that none of us has any righteousness to stand on. "There is no one righteous, not even one" (Rom. 3:10). We all need to drop to our knees humbly before the Lord and confess, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13).

The Lord, Jesus, came to seek and save the lost—not those who have life put together, not those who do not need a savior. He came to heal the spiritually sick, not those who see themselves as spiritually healthy.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:3). Why did he say this? Because the person who sees his need for forgiveness and rescue—the person who comes to God with humility and no righteousness of his own—is the person who inherits Christ's kingdom; who is comforted from his mourning over his own sin.

Missionaries, church planters, and pastors are not ultra-righteous people. They have not arrived at some ultra-spiritual, higher plane. Instead, they ought to be some of the most needy, repentant, and prayerfully dependent people you know. They must have a habit of recognizing their sin, bringing it into the light, and turning from it to Christ. They are deeply aware that they have borrowed righteousness from Christ and no righteousness of their own.

Pray for us to have humble, dependent, and repentant hearts as we move to Zambia. We know what is most likely to disqualify us is our own failure to deal with sin by quickly turning from it to Christ.

Jesus Over Everything,

Austin and Rachel Hunt