Self-Righteous Delusion

Have we ever thought or prayed, “Thank God I’m not like ...” (and you fill in the blank)? We deceive ourselves that we can assume a measure of superiority over other people. In Luke 18:9-14 it was a religious leader thanking God that he was not like someone else who had come to pray. We can so easily pray, “Thank God I’m not like ...” (fill in a particular religious doctrine or a dubious profession). Such thoughts are a distortion of reality. Just like a crazy person in a mental institution, who believes he is Napoleon, we like to imagine that we are superior to others because of an incomplete comparison. Self-righteousness is a fool’s paradise. If we define our own sense of self-worth by the faults of others, we are living a delusion. We are running from our own faults.