March 5. Look to Jesus, your joy. They do all their deeds to be seen by others,

and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in

the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others, Matthew 23, 5 through 7.

The itch of self-regard craves the scratch of self-approval.

If we're getting our pleasure from feeling self-sufficient, we will not be satisfied without

others seeing and applauding our self-sufficiency. Hence, Jesus' description of the scrubs and

Pharisees in Matthew 23, 5, they do all their deeds to be seen by others. This is ironic.

Wouldn't you think that self-sufficiency should free the proud person from the need to be made

much of by others? That's what sufficient means. But evidently, there is an emptiness in this so-called

self-sufficiency. The self was never designed to satisfy itself or rely upon itself.

It never can be self-sufficient. We are not God. We are in the image of God and what makes us

like God is not our self-sufficiency. We are shadows and echoes. So there will always be an emptiness

in the soul that struggles to be satisfied with the resources of self.

This empty craving for the praise of others signals the failure of pride and the absence of

faith in God's ongoing grace. Jesus saw the terrible effect of this itch for human glory.

He named it in John 544. How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek

the glory that comes from the only God? And the answer is you can't. Itching for glory from other

people makes faith impossible. Why? Because faith looks away from self to God. Faith is being

satisfied with all that God is for you in Jesus. And if you are bent on getting the satisfaction of

your itch from the scratch of others' praise, you will turn away from Jesus. That's not what he's

like. He lives for the glory of his father and he calls us to do the same. But if you would turn

from self as the source of satisfaction, repentance and come to Jesus for the enjoyment of all that

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