Hello.
I have many Christian friends, colleagues, neighbours etc. Nice people, I love them. However, one side of them I notice which is I think isn’t that great is that Christianity makes them feel superior. We hold the truth, we are chosen, we are the saved ones, we are the children of the Highest King, we will be in heaven, we are the righteous etc. etc.
While I don't deny that there are probably plenty of puffed up, self-righteous Christians who think that their professed religion makes them superior to the rest of the unbelievers-- as many of the Pharisees were in Jesus's own day--we should also avoid conflating conviction with pride. In a culture that's increasingly puts emphasis on inclusivity and equality, doubt becomes a virtue, and the very idea that a particular world view or truth claim should be more "true" or "valid" than any other is seen as repugnant. This line of thinking doesn't actually hold water if you give it more thought, but I won't argue about that here.
Jesus, on the contrary, always teaches humility and to hold others in higher esteem than yourself. Jesus also teaches not to take credit for the good you do openly as then you miss receiving the reward for it from God.
Jesus teaches us to love our neighbours as ourselves. To love others is to desire and pursue for their greatest good, even if they don't see it as such. Think of it this way: if you see a loved one living in a destructive lifestyle (e.g. laziness, addiction, criminal activity, etc.), would it be more loving to try and turn them away from all of that and help them to live a more fulfilling life, or to leave them where they are because we don't want to be accused of "cramp their lifestyle"?
Or, as Amy Carmichael wrote in her book,
If: “If I am afraid to speak the truth lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say, "You do not understand", or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put my own good name before the other's highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love.”
How come? Why is Christianity so puffed up when Jesus teaches us not to be?
Because our hearts are "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9), and as the Israelites did after God made a covenant with them in Sinai, we as Christians are not immune from falling into the trap of thinking that God's favour is an indication of our superiority rather than a display of His infinite mercy.
This is why the heart of the Gospel is that you can't somehow earn salvation by "pulling yourself up by your spiritual bootstraps", but that God himself has to come down to our lowliness through Jesus to lift us up. And even as believers, we are still sinners, in constant need of God's grace, to carry out the good we want to do, and resist the sin nature still inside us (Romans 7:15-20). We are not perfect, nor could we ever hope to be in this life.
But in Christ who had won victory over sin and death, we have hope that in the final days, all our weakness and corruption will be raised in strength and glory (1 Corinthians 15:42-58), and it is our hope that everyone can come to Christ and share in that promise.
God bless.
