YOU ARE PROUD THAT YOU DON'T COMMIT WHICH SIN EXACTLY?

Christianity overall is missing a major mark.  It's cost for doing so surely has to be desperately sizable.  The villain among us?  Personal pride that we, individually, don't sin like other sinners.  This is rampant among us. Furthermore, it is rampantly wrong.

Some of us are proud that we are not liars.  Others are pleased with ourselves that we are not adulterers.  Yet, others find joy in not being gay, not being swindlers, or not being judgmental.  Pride is the key and absolute disruptive word in all of this.

Pride is quite prominently acceptable among we sinners for we are always able to find someone (we self-righteously assume) to be more despicable than ourselves.  This seems to justify permission to let us off of the hook.  But, pride is also sin...a very costly sin.

And He also told this parable to certain ones who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: 

"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer.  The Pharisee stood and was praying thus to himself, 'God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer.  I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.' "

"But the tax-gatherer, 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 down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted.' "

Should we operate as did the Pharisee, we find ability to live a false, but surface, life.  We justify our own blatant errors while allowing ourselves the freedom to be quite miffed over another's lesser offense.  Jesus once said to such a crowd, Go ahead.  Throw the first stone; any who are not guilty of your own personal sin.  All walked away.

Humility is truly the call (the need) of the heart.  Do not mistake.  It isn't that sin is not to be called sin.  It is that when we call our own personal violations sin that we are finally able to minister to other sinners for we finally grasp authentically where they hurt, where they wrestle...and even where they grieve.

Do not be filled with pride.  Our failing to commit certain sins is no excuse for the horrendous sins we do commit which drove Jesus to the Cross.  Try to remember your own misdeeds.  From such may we be a help to others rather than a critic.