Kingsley Nwaekwe

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.

Self-righteous people are less concerned about their hearts and what God sees and more about how others view their actions.

Let's take a look at the most self-righteous groups in the Bible, the Pharisees and Sadducees.

In the book of Matthew, we see Jesus rebuke the Pharisees and Sadducees for their self-righteous behavior.

Matthew 6 verse 5 says, And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.

Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.

In Greek culture, a hypocrite was an actor in a play.

They would have many different roles in a play.

In one scene, they would come out in a green mask.

Then in the next scene, they would play a different role and come out in a red mask.

They were constantly changing their roles depending on the scene.

Jesus says that the Pharisees and Sadducees do the same thing.

They play different roles in front of people depending on the audience they have in front of them.

In today's culture, we would find it strange for someone to stand on the street and start praying.