13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. (Matthew 23)
Woe: something that takes you back, and not in a good way. It is so wrong it pierces your heart, knocks the wind out of you, making you mad and sad at the same time. Nothing breaks God's heart more than when our self-righteousness infects others - when we convince ourselves, and others that we can be, and even are, good enough to merit God's favor on our own accord. It creates a false hope, or maybe an empty emptiness that keeps us, and them "going through the motions." May we make it clear, to ourselves, and others, that it is only through God's grace through Christ that we can ever be right with Him.
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