Self-justification

If our focus is on self-justification we will never have the freedom to face all that we are. We will want to exaggerate our holinesses and minimize our depravity. This is because of the fallen ideal that our acceptability depends upon our ability to perform well. We loath and fear our imperfections and sin because they threaten our sense of value before others and ourselves. This is why self-justification is always a movement away from love. Self-justification always depends on the performance of the self, while love always depends on the free choice of our lover.

To be committed to a path of self-justification; earning our own worth and defending our own honor, is to be bound up in the old covenant of rule-keeping rather than embracing the new covenant of mercy.

"'For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more."

In speaking of “a new covenant,” he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear." -Hebrews 8:12-13