If you retain guilt and self-righteousness under it [root of your religion], those vipers will eat out all the vitals of it at length. Try and examine with greatest strictness every day, what ground your religion and hope of glory is built upon, whether it was laid by the hand of Christ. If not, it will never be able to endure the storm that must come against it; Satan will throw it all down, and great will be the fall thereof (Mat 7:27). Thomas Wilcox
The vitality of true Christianity is the life of Christ in the soul and this is when Christ takes away the guilt of sin and those who have Christ have a perfect righteousness as a gift from Christ and so they no longer need to live for their own righteousness but are free to live out of love for God and His glory. Self-righteousness in any form eats at the very heart of Christianity and takes the vitality (life) out of it. Guilt for sin will also do the same thing because a person that has Christ has a perfect satisfaction for the guilt of sin and so should be free of living under the guilt of sin. It is true that no one lives like that perfectly, but those who have the life of Christ in them will not be in bondage to the guilt of sin nor to the horrible sin of self-righteousness.
The true believer, which is the person that has died to self (been crucified with Christ) and now Christ dwells in that believer by His Spirit, is a person that lives because of what Christ has done and what the Spirit is doing in the person now. Every true person that lives by faith in Christ and so lives by grace alone is not a person that looks to self-righteousness to obtain anything, but instead is horrified at the thought of having self-righteousness. A self-righteous spirit is hated by God and is in reality to the person that is self-righteous an idol. How many who profess Christ seem to serve the idol of self rather than Christ and try to use Him to prop up the idol of self before others.
There is no life or vitality of Christianity in those who live by guilt or self-righteousness. Both of those are indeed vipers and come from the Serpent who deceives people into thinking that they are believers. One who is seeking Christ will find that these vipers will eat away at any hope of having Christ and of seeking Christ in truth. The very concept that the Puritans had of seeking was that a person should be broken of self-righteousness as they sought God and a person was not truly seeking who became self-righteous as a result of some form of seeking.
While it may not be possible to examine ourselves with strictness each and every day, it is certainly a good idea to examine ourselves often. This goes against the thinking in the modern day that if we have prayed a prayer or walked an aisle we should never doubt that Christ has saved us, but when one considers how deceitful the human heart is and how deceptive sin and the devil are, it is wisdom to examine ourselves to see if Christ is in us (II Cor 13:5). It is clearly taught in the New Testament that many will be deceived and many will seek to enter who will not enter. There will be many who were very religious, did miracles, and did many good works, and even many pastors and preachers who will be told that they were lawless and that they must depart from Him. They did not build their lives and righteousness upon Christ and Christ alone.
It is not enough to say that I have Christ and it is not enough to entertain a hope of the glory of God. It is not enough to pray a prayer and to pursue an outward morality. It is not enough to pursue an inward morality from the strength of self. It is not enough to be very religious and do all the things of religion. If what a sinner does is not built upon Christ and does not come from Christ by grace alone, that sinner is building on a sandy foundation that will have a great fall regardless of what that sinner does in the name of religion.
Christianity is built on the grace of God and on the grace of God alone. A soul is saved by the grace of God alone and no man can help that grace save him or he would share in his own salvation and have something to glory in. A soul must live by Christ and be the manifestation of the glory of God through Christ in the world or that soul is in some ways seeking self and the righteousness of self. There appear to be many who are seeking fame and riches through religion whether in academics or in leadership or simply in service at a local church. It is possible to seek self-righteousness and honor for that in being busy in a local church, but it is not possible to seek the glory of God while one is seeking the honor of self (John 5:44). Since the natural man is so prone to self-love, honor for self, and self-righteousness it is easy for the evil one to deceive the natural man with the things of religion. But grace teaches us that we must die to those things that Christ would exalt Himself through us.
God Loves... Himself 
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