Self righteousness is not righteousness

I want us to look at a few Bible verses today and see what we can learn from those. They are Genesis 38:24-26:”²⁴ About three months later Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant.” Judah said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!” ²⁵ As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. “I am pregnant by the man who owns these,” she said. And she added, “See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are.” ²⁶ Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn’t give her to my son Shelah… ” (NIV)

If you look at all context we see that Judah committed sin by having intimacy with Tamar. However, having found out that she became pregnant he took on a position of self righteousness and decided to punish Tamar for her act of immorality. Only when he found out that the act was carried out with him he understood his sin and mistake. I believe this is one of the situations in the Bible that teach us to look at ourselves and judge ourselves, not others. It happens quite often that when we judge others we actually do the thing ourselves and maybe even worse things than the person whom we condemn for doing this or that sin.

If we want to be righteous let us first apply right standards for ourselves and apply the same standards for others too. This is how we will avoid being hypocrites. There is no one who would not sin and we have to learn to forgive and not to sit in the seat of the Judge. I do not mean tolerating sin, I mean not living double standards. Let us put on real righteousness, not self righteousness.

God bless you. See also:

http://bible-verse-of-the-day-blog.blogspot.com/2012/06/22-bible-verses-about-blessings.html
http://bible-verse-of-the-day-blog.blogspot.com/2012/05/bible-verses-about-pride.html
http://bible-verse-of-the-day-blog.blogspot.com/2012/05/26-bible-verses-about-grace.html