The call of repentance is for the righteous and unrighteous, the godly and ungodly alike. If the righteous had been the lights they were called to be, the nation would never have fallen as it did.
Self-righteousness is unavoidable. You can either be a self-righteous Pharisee where you think you are better than everyone else or you can be a self-righteous pagan who thinks you are better than the Pharisee. If you are a self-righteous person, I could become very self-righteous thinking that you're self-righteous and you think you're so good but I know you're bad. I know I'm bad so that makes me better than you.
Those who know their unworthiness seize grace as a hungry man seizes bread: the self-righteous resent grace.
When God's righteousness is mentioned in the gospel, it is God's action of declaring righteous the unrighteous sinner who has faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness by which a person is justified (declared righteous) is not his own but that of another, Christ.
God's own hand Holds fast all issues of our deeds: with him The end of all our ends is, but with us Our ends are, just or unjust: though our works Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this At least is ours, to make them righteous.
People are three-dimensional. They're not good or bad. They're not righteous or unrighteous. They are a million different things.
Silent white light filled the world. And the righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire.
We Protestants automatically assume that the Pharisees are the Catholics. They are the self-righteous people who have made Christianity a form of legalistic religion, thereby destroying the free grace of the Gospel. We Protestants are the tax collectors, knowing that we are sinners and that our lives depend upon God's free grace.
For us to feel peace within our hearts while we live here on earth we must be righteous. There is nothing that the world calls fun or pleasurable that can compare to the inner happiness and joy that comes from being righteous, nothing. That may be something you don't think much about, but if you will take time to identify how you feel when you make an unrighteous choice and compare that to how you feel when you make a difficult but righteous choice, you will know what I am talking about.
Ye must leave righteous ways behind, not to speak of unrighteous ways.
It is a hard thing for a man to be righteous, if the unrighteous man is to have the greater right.
I always have a feeling of awe and wonder at what God can do - using me as an instrument. I believe that anyone who is fully surrendered to God's will can be used gloriously - and will really know some things - and will probably be called self-righteous. You're called self-righteous if you are self-centered enough to think you know everything - but you may also be called self-righteous by the immature if you are God-centered enough to really know some things.
Am I self-righteous? Why not? It's not like I can count on you to be righteous for me.
most of us have to be self-righteous before we can be righteous.
We do not become righteous by doing righteous deed but, having been made righteous, we do righteous deeds.
Deeds are the pulse of Time, his beating life, And righteous or unrighteous, being done, Must throb in after-throbs till Time itself Be laid in stillness, and the universe Quiver and breathe upon no mirror more.