In the most lopsided deal of all time, Jesus took our filthy rags of sin and gave us His robe of righteousness. Our righteousness is not our own, it is from Him. Dare we brag of our goodness now?
Self-Righteousness
Oswald Chambers
We need to rely on the resurrection life of Jesus on a much deeper level than we do now. We should get in the habit of continually seeking His counsel on everything, instead of making our own commonsense decisions and then asking Him to bless them. He cannot bless them; it is not in His realm to do so, and those decisions are severed from reality. If we do something simply out of a sense of duty, we are trying to live up to a standard that competes with Jesus Christ. We become a prideful, arrogant person, thinking we know what to do in every situation. We have put our sense of duty on the throne of our life, instead of enthroning the resurrection life of Jesus.
John Owen
Poor souls are apt to think that all those whom they read or hear of to be gone to heaven, went there because they were so good and holy…Yet not one of them, not any one that is now in heaven (Jesus Christ alone excepted), did ever come there any other way but by forgiveness of sins.
Philip Yancey
The worst tragedy would be to turn the Sermon on the Mount into another form of legalism; it should rather put an end to all legalism. Legalism like the Pharisees’ will always fail, not because it is too strict but because it is not strict enough. Thunderously, inarguably, the Sermon on the Mount proves that before God we all stand on level ground: murderers and temper-throwers, adulterers and lusters, thieves and coveters. We are all desperate, and that is in fact the only state appropriate to a human being who wants to know God. Having fallen from the absolute Ideal, we have nowhere to land but in the safety net of absolute grace.
Augustus Toplady
When Christ entered into Jerusalem the people spread garments in the way: when He enters into our hearts, we pull off our own righteousness, and not only lay it under Christ’s feet but even trample upon it ourselves.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
The Gospel is open to all; the most respectable sinner has no more claim on it than the worst.
David Rhodes
Pride is the dandelion of the soul. Its root goes deep; only a little left behind sprouts again. Its seeds lodge in the tiniest encouraging cracks. And it flourishes in good soil: The danger of pride is that it feeds on goodness.
Horatius Bonar
The beginning, the middle, and end of your course must be dissatisfaction with self, and satisfaction with Christ. Be content to be satisfied with faith’s glorious object, and let faith itself be forgotten. Faith, however perfect, has nothing to give you. It points you to Jesus. It bids you look away from itself to Him. It bids you look away from itself to Him. It says, “Christ is all.” It bids you look to him who says, “Look upon me;” who says, “Fear not, I am the first and the last; I am he that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore.”
Author Unknown
To give God the service of the body and not of the soul – is hypocrisy. To give God the service of the soul and not of the body is sacrilege. To give God neither is atheism and to give God both is worship.
Cyril Brooks
Jesus says to you and me, ‘I want to share with you what I have achieved. I want to live in you. I want to share my risen life with you.’ How do we get it? We cannot buy it, cannot earn it, cannot work for it-no matter how hard we try. In fact the harder we try, the less likely we are of getting it, because the point is that it is a free gift! We can only accept it free! We can only receive it! We don’t get it by being good! We get it by grace, i.e. Jesus Christ living in us.