The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon.

“Not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.”

—Philippians 3:9

Sometimes, we look at ourselves and think we’re doing pretty good. We haven’t done anything overtly sinful or obvious to the outside world recently.

But Jesus makes it clear that this type of righteousness is just like whitewashing a tomb. The outside might look good, but inside, it’s still dead. He tells us that it’s not only our actions that incriminate us, but our motives and our thoughts.

And if we’re looking at those honestly, we can usually see the fear, hypocrisy, lust, selfishness, pride (and more) that rears its head over and over each day.

It’s easy to let this discourage us when we truly want to be like Christ. But wallowing in our failures and letting them drag us down into despair is just another trick of the devil (2 Corinthians 7:10). He tempts us to sin then uses our shame over that sin to keep us from running to Christ.

It’s another way to keep our eyes on ourselves instead of on Jesus.

Jesus is not shocked by our failures, and we shouldn’t be either. 

When he rescued the woman caught in adultery, he implored her to “Go and sin no more,” but he did not shame her (John 8:1–11).

When Peter had denied and abandoned him, Jesus did not scold and belittle. He sought Peter out and renewed his calling. 

When we fall short (Romans 3:23), the answer is to repent, turn our eyes back to the Lord, run to him, and accept his grace. 

Our faith is not in ourselves, but in him.

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