God's forgiveness
Jesus told a story one day of a man who was a tax collector and a Pharisees. In Luke 18:9-17 it says that these two went to the temple to pray. The Pharisee prayed "God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people; swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get." verse 11-12. While the tax collector, one of the most hated of professions in Jesus' day said, "God, be merciful to me, the sinner!" Jesus declared that it was the tax collector not the Pharisees who walked away that day just. One of the things that the Lord is showing me is that in pride is one of man's greatest sins and hindrances towards spiritual growth. That is because in order to come to God and ask for forgiveness and to see ourselves the way that God sees us we must be humble. God does not see any of us as just, righteous or pure in and of ourselves. Righteousness is a gift not something that we earned.