What you fail to understand is that for those who are not in Christ, there is none righteous; there is none who does good.
Agreed. And even for those who are in Christ there is none righteous if we are looking at what that person can do to effect his salvation. All his righteous acts are filthy rags. He's still doomed to the waste heap. Fortunately for us there is a propitiation for sin to take care of this sorry state. One who is in Christ is declared to be righteous on the basis of his faith in Christ, even if even the heathen would consider him to be the scum of the earth.
Anything we have is because of Him. As a believer, you can neither add to or subtract from what God gives us as a gift.
So far, so good, if you are talking about righteousness. Righteousness is a gift given at the point of salvation. Nothing we can do can make us more or less righteous. It's kind of like being pregnant. Either you are or you are not. One cannot be more or less righteous any more than one can be more or less pregnant. Even a total pukeheaded scumbag is righteous if he is in Christ. Even a DEMOCRAT can be righteous for God's sake! (I know, pushing the limits of God's grace here)
You are no more or less proud, arrogant, or selfish before you are saved, then you will be after you are saved.
Whoah - dude - you were on a roll and then you throw in this doosy.
Perhaps you are equating being less proud, arrogant, and selfish and being more loving as being more righteous? Let's back up. Righteous means, literally, "in right standing." Righteousness is something only God can give because only he is the Judge and determines what is acceptable. He is the one who determines what it takes to be in right standing with him. He has provided the way: faith in his Son, Jesus Christ.
God demands absolute perfection. In other words, if God demands that you jump over the Grand Canyon to be perfect, it doesn't matter how close you came. Falling short creates the same result. God is not in the business to get our flesh to perform,
Getting flesh to perform - good luck with that. That leads to religion and self-righteousness.
which is why He had to circumcise us from it, and give us His Spirit. He had to make us, what we can never make ourselves, and it is not a process. That teaching is demonic.
I disagree, in part.
Listen carefully, if you really care about this.
Once we give others the impression that God is in the business of changing our lives, we bring to many a state of hopelessness and despair when they do not meet the expected results. God did not come to change our lives, he came to give us His. In His life we are free to grow in His grace, without the condemnation associated with expectations.
Whose expected results? Oh, yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve had enough legalism to last me a lifetime. Churches doing essentially what the Pharisees did: taking vague instructions like “don’t work on the Sabbath,” for example, and determining for everyone how much lifting is considered work. Christian churches do the same. The Catholic church is full of people who seem to have a need for someone to tell them when they can eat meat or how often to pray the Rosary. Protestant churches have people trying to tell you exactly when you’ve gone from appreciating God’s creation to lusting after women or how mad you can get without sinning or how much money you should give and whether it should be based on net or gross income, etc. etc. ad naseum.
As a minister of the New Covenant (2 Cor. 3:6) I don’t teach standards, I teach principles and let the Spirit of God lead the listener as to what that should mean for his life and I’m OK with them not being as strict about it as I would be in my life unless I think how they want to apply the Word is going to lead them away from God or have deleterious effects on theirs or somebody else’s life. How could I be OK with that if I have agape love in my heart? I do share how I apply God’s principles in my life so I can lead by example but I don’t expect anybody to do it like I would. That’s between them and the Holy Spirit.
Having said that, there is a place for rebuke, correction, adjusting, pleading, exhorting, and encouraging to live maturely and spiritually, and someone who is walking in the Spirit will be able to take such admonitions and let God do the work.
When you teach others that we are to"obey His commands" or "keep the Law", even if it is something that you claim that the Holy Spirit is doing in their lives, then you bring expectation and condemnation into the lives of those who don't measure up to YOUR standard. This is what Paul was teaching them in Galatians 5 that leads to boasting, envy, and challenging one another.
I agree yet we cannot totally eliminate expectations. They need to be tempered with love and presented in a non-legalistic manner (as I described in an earlier paragraph), as best we can with the ability and maturity we have gained as we walk with Him. One scripture comes to mind: Galatians 6:1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
When you show others that we are all on the same level, and that everyone’s "good works" is as "filthy rags" and that we are totally dependent on Christ, then we give the lost... hope, because anyone can do that.
Amen to that my friend. And I would add anyone can take their sins before their heavenly Father and get CLEANSED of their sin. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Just pure, Holy Spirit soap that works gently yet powerfully. As it says in Hebrews 12:11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
