Picture this.

You're climbing a spiritual ladder, desperately adding more rungs of religious activity to reach God's approval.

All the while, you're looking down on others, feeling pretty good about your elevated status. Sound exhausting?

Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindall cuts straight to the heart of Christianity's most

dangerous deception. Teaching from Romans chapter 2, Chuck reveals the shocking difference

between performance-based religion and cultivating a genuine relationship with Christ.

So let's tear down the ladder and replace it with grace.

Chuck titled his message, The Dark Side of Being Super Religious.

In your Bible, you will find the letter to the Romans and in your worship folder you will find an outline.

Let's bring them together at chapter two.

Chapter two of Romans beginning at verse 17, Paul is writing the need of general humanity for a relationship with God, and he hasn't pulled any punches.

He's talked about the absolute lost pagan, the end of chapter one.

He's talked about the moral person wrapped in self-righteousness at the beginning of chapter two.

And now he addresses the traditional Jewish individual who could easily be caught up in his own tradition and pride as he makes it clear that even

that person needs Christ, 217. But if you bear the name Jew and rely upon the law and boast

in God and know his will and approve the things that are essential being instructed out of the law and are confident

that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, a corrector

of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth.

You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself?

You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal?

You who say that one should not commit adul steal, do you steal?

You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?

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