Beware your "godliness"

I'm sure you've all seen the Westboro Baptist church protests.  Using funerals or other special events to protest against certain unbiblical principles.  I personally abhor what they do, I just want to get that out right from the start.  I can give you a number of reasons why I believe they do things wrong, what they should or shouldn't do, how they are hypocritical; however, yesterday I suddenly came upon what is the best warning I have for them, and not only for them, but for many of us who have the same tendencies if only in smaller quantities.

I was thinking of the one group of people that Jesus seemed to hate.  In the gospels we find Jesus interacting with the adulterers, the tax-collectors(worse even than IRS agents), the drunkards, the lowly, and the outright filthy(fish just don't smell good any way you put it).  He got along with these people pretty well.  We know this for He was criticized as being a friend of tax-collectors and sinners.  The people He didn't get along with were the pharisees.  He hated them.  In one instance(Matthew 23:13-36) Jesus blasts the scribes and pharisees for their deeds.  Showing them for the hypocrites they are.  I won't go into these verses, but I do wish to mention another.

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!' I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. - Luke 18:10-14


The Pharisee thought himself better than the other sinners.  He had no problem looking down his nose at the tax collector.  He was so good that he could judge these other people as less than himself.  Yet, in all his self-righteousness, Jesus despised him.


Are you different?


Do you see someone else that you look on as a sinner, maybe that friend who goes to the bars too often, maybe the coworker who gossips constantly, or even the family member who loses his temper so easily.  Do you look down on them as you praise yourself for not being like them?  Do you feel good about yourself because you don't do these things others around you do?  Do you have justify the things you do because you're not near as bad as those around you.

Beware.


When you protest someone's life because you are more godly than they, beware.  

When you choose to look past someone because they don't look good enough for you, beware.

When you criticize someone another because they're not as godly as you, beware.


Beware that in your "godliness", you don't become the very people Jesus can't stand.