⁹ To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable.
                                                                        -Luke 18:9
 
Chances are you know some religious people. And chances are that if you know enough religious people, you know at least one or two who are fairly certain of how right they are and they’re fairly certain about how wrong everyone else is.
 
Jesus had his most strident conflicts with the religious people. If you’re one of those religious people, this needs to be a warning.  Mere religion makes us more self-righteous, Jesus makes us more generous.
 
Mere religion is about doing all the right external actions and checking all the right boxes in order to feel good about yourself.  If religious observances are what you’re using to feel good about yourself, it’s easy to get self-righteous about them: I pray. I go to church. I read my Bible. I volunteer somewhere.  You don’t. Therefore, I’m a better person than you (even though I might not say that out loud).
 
That’s why what Jesus has come to do is so much better than just religion.  It’s a relationship. And it all starts with surrender. 
 
It all starts with recognizing our need for a Savior and then realizing how deep the rabbit hole of sin goes in our lives and how our need for a Savior never goes away.  It all starts with receiving God’s gracious and loving initiative towards us. Our daily relationship with Jesus runs on that same grace and is fueled by God’s own Holy Spirit actively at work and present in our lives to transform our hearts.
 
Following Jesus isn’t mere religion. It’s a real-time, real-life, fully-integrated, character-forging, life-altering, day-by-day, long obedience in the same direction walk with the Lord of the cosmos.  That Lord is committed to our hearts being transformed by his amazing love and truth, his kindness and discipline, slowly but surely, over a lifetime.
 
So if you’re a religious person, today’s a chance to take your own pulse. Are you mostly caught up in the external trappings of religious observance? Or have you recognized that those expressions (as faithful as they might be) are only valuable in as much as they are an overflow of a heart genuinely engaged with God?
 
Religious self-righteousness is a very easy trap to fall into. Take a minute to consider the various external badges of religion that you might have some measure of self-righteousness about. Remember that Jesus reserved his most explosive words for self-righteous religious people. Ask him to free you and deliver you from anything that could come between you and him, especially your religion!