Righteousness and Judgment

The earmark of a self righteous, religious spirit is to condemn others for their faults, or for their supposed faults. The Pharisees of Jesus' day continually manifested this trait, magnifying the sins of others and accusing Jesus and his disciples for sins that were not sins at all (Lk. 7:39; Jn. 9:34; Jn. 7:33,34; Mat. 12:1-5; Mat. 15:1-3; Jn. 8:3-5,48). On the other hand, the Spirit of God in someone is always earmarked by a merciful spirit, more ready to excuse and forgive the failures of others than to condemn. Jesus exemplified this quality at every turn when he was here (Lk. 7:47,48; Jn. 8:10,11; Lk. 19:2-9,39-43). You see, a self righteous spirit CANNOT demonstrate any true righteousness because it doesn't HAVE any to demonstrate.That is why it must rely on magnifying and fabricating the faults of others, because that is the only way it can make itself look righteous. It is nothing but a decoy tactic, something often used by Satan in many ways to confuse and deceive people with. God's Spirit is altogether different. It IS righteousness and therefore all it has to do to be righteous, is to BE! Those who follow after God's Spirit are going to be holy, honest, humble, and merciful; and those are things that don't have to employ any strategies to appear righteous. As the beloved apostle noted: "Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous" (I Jn. 3:7). A person who is truly merciful, righteous, and humble is very easy to detect unless one is too busy looking for fault, and too unwilling to acknowledge someone else's good to see it. Such was indeed the case with the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus' day, who saw, felt, and heard the most righteous soul that has ever graced this world; and came to the conclusion that he was possessed by a devil (Jn. 8:49).

Another noteworthy trait of those who are truly walking in the righteousness of God is that they will call the bluff of the religious spirits of those around them who are trying to confuse and deceive the unlearned with their self righteous tactics. Jesus also did this more times than we can list here, but here is one memorable reference: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, 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" (Mat. 23:27,28). Jesus condemned those who were condemning the weak and the guiltless, and exalting their own supposed righteousness thereby. The religious spirit of the Pharisees is very much alive and active today, and the holy Spirit of God is also manifested through the true followers of Jesus today. Satan is still laboring feverishly to confuse and deceive the simple by moving his religious pawns to rant and rave about everyone else's wickedness, and to fabricate claims of wickedness against those who truly are righteous. Yet if one will simple blow the smoke away from their eyes and take an honest look at these 'Christian' crybabies, one will see that they are demonstrating absolutely no mercy, or humility, or honesty whatsoever. No my friend, as John stated, "[those] who are DOING righteousness are righteous, even as [Christ] is righteous." He did NOT say, "Those who are condemning the living daylights out of everyone else, are righteous." Because that is NOT what JESUS did, and "[he is] the same, yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). Don't be fooled by these self righteous crusaders and become a pawn of the devil, whose name means "slanderer." Rather heed the proverb of Solomon which tells us; "The wise man's eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness" (Eccl. 2:14). Everyone is showing us what spirit they are of, if we have eyes to see, and honesty of heart to perceive. Amen.