Timely Tips on Tuesday: "Holier, But How?"

We have talked for a number of weeks about Child-Training, and the Ten Things I would tell a young mom to do in order to raise Godly children...
Now, having said all of the above, I want to emphasize this...
We can do all the “right things” on the outside and even be one of the “Godliest” families to everyone else’s eyes...
and yet be filled with pride, arrogance, lust, envy, covetousness, unforgiveness, hatred, impatience, boastfulness, and every evil thing.
In Matthew 23:27 Jesus railed on those who were hypocrites:

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

For ye are like unto whited sepulchers which indeed appear beautiful outward,

but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.

Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,

but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.”

Iniquity has been defined as “doing my will.” Righteousness is “doing God’s will” or "obeying the standards of the One who sets the rules”.

The gospel:  It is only Jesus Christ who saves us. Only by Jesus, who was perfect, dying on the cross, being punished for our sins, and by God showing that He accepted that payment by raising Jesus back to life, and bringing His dear Son back up to heaven where He lives now, where He sits at the right hand of God, the Father--only by believing this gospel truth and trusting in Him and His work on the cross to save us from hell—not by anything in us—no right things that we do--are we saved. We may know all that. But, do we also know, and act like we know, that He sanctifies us, or makes us perfect, like Jesus Christ? Or do we think we need to help Him out on this one? Do we have a list of things that we do or don’t do—anything from Homeschooling our children, to dressing a certain way, to eating or not eating certain foods, to having our babies by a particular method or in a particular place, to having many babies, to belonging to "the" organizations... (Each of us would have a slightly different list)—and so on and so on and so on...that we have made into a "religion"? Do we think that it is our "work" that accomplishes the perfecting of ourselves? Have we begun to look to our own standards of righteousness, instead of God's?  Setting up a set of rules for ourselves, which is a standard of righteousness, apart from Christ's, is called iniquity. Or perhaps, we are proud that we don't have to follow rules at all.  Perhaps the opposite is true of us, and we have decided that there are no standards of righteousness:  it doesn't matter what we do, once we are saved, that God will love us no matter what, so who cares?  Does God look on us more favorably when we do, or don’t do, certain things?

What do you think? Join the discussion.