Made of TinFoil

Yesterday I publicly recognized my self righteous attitude.  I'm truly learning how God works in us one layer at a time, like peeling an onion-- it stinks & it probably does make Him cry.  There are a couple things about being self righteous, which was far far worse in me 12-15 years ago and with what I've been through you'd think that would've been completely purged from my heart.  Only part of it was purged from my heart and it was in a big painful way and due completely to my sin. 

The self righteousness that I've recognized is lodged in my heart is evident in 2 ways: 
The first way shows because of my frustration over other Christian's obvious sin (obvious to me), and not equally frustrated over my own obvious sin (obvious to others).  See how that works? This is why Jesus said, "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:5, NIV).  Yep, the self righteous are hypocrites because they are concerned about how someone else is sinning a sin that they don't struggle with, not acknowledging that there just might be some other sin in their own lives that they are not recognizing.  And what I'm learning is that self righteousness is still self-righteousness no matter what level you're on with it. 
The second way is when we sin and are so devastated and disappointed in ourselves because we expected more.  Depression usually follows this all because we are not as good as we wanted ourselves to be or expected ourselves to be.  All this is self.  Romans 3:22-24, "...righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (NIV).  The Lord gives us His righteousness as a free gift, we cannot earn it.  I can release self righteousness and ask Him to help me acknowledge my junk being completely satisfied by His wonderful righteousness.  I love what my friend told me yesterday so I'll just re-quote her, ""All our righteousness comes from Him so we have no reason to be surprised when our humanity is less than perfect, but thankful He is revealing it so we can expose it to His righteousness!"

In order to wear the breastplate of righteousness we have to forgo the self-righteousness!! Self-righteous leaves our vital spiritual organs totally open to attack, we must take off our self-righteousness in order to put on His righteousness. Is is time for you to change clothes & finally put on God's bullet proof vest instead of your tinfoil one?  It is for me & Imma changin'!!  I don't want to wear a spiritual "bullet proof vest" made of tinfoil anymore!! (Galations 5).