Bible Repentance: Path to Love - Robert J. Wieland

gutter, he said, “There, but for the grace of Christ,
am I.” Evidently he must have felt it deep inside,
for if the remark had been a mere cliche to him, he
would never have been able to change as many
lives as he did.
Self-righteous “saints” abhor the truth of
Christ’s righteousness. They resent the contrition
that is implicit in seeing in Christ all their
righteousness. They shrink with abhorrence from
putting themselves in the place of the sinner, the
alcoholic, the dope addict, the criminal, the
prostitute, the rebel, the mentally ill. They say in
heart, “I could never sink to such a depth!”
So long as they feel thus, they are powerless to
speak as Jesus did the effective word to help such.
Their love for souls is frozen by their impenitence.
Restrained and restricted, it ceases to be love. They
decline to enter the kingdom of heaven themselves
through letting the Holy Spirit melt down their
deep-frozen hearts, and they actually “shut up the
kingdom of heaven against men,” barring the way
so that neither “Mary Magdalene” nor “the thief on
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