From Y!/A: "Spiritually Speaking" does excepting yourself allows others to accept you?

The Yahoo! Answers staff occasionally deletes questions that people ask in the Religion and Spirituality section that they consider offensive or off topic. One way that potential "abusers" get around this is by adding "Spiritually speaking" to the beginning of their question. Often I find that these are valid, or at least useful questions to answer. Here is one that was recently deleted.

Question:
"Spiritually Speaking" does excepting yourself allows others to accept you?

Answer:
Yes and no.

"Excepting yourself", is called hypocrisy. Setting up rules for others to follow, while not following these rules yourself is what "religious" people often do. People truly and rightly hate hypocrisy.

"Accepting yourself" (if that is what you meant), is called self-righteousness. In accepting yourself, you will begin to put down others as that is the only means to keep up your own self-acceptance, or self-righteousness. Oddly, unlike outright hypocrisy, this self-righteousness will likely be accepted by many others, because they are doing same thing.

"Accepting Jesus", is the only way to be acceptable to God, and the only way to truly accept (love) others. In order to accept Jesus, you must put off your self-righteousness and hypocrisy, and accept that you are a vile sinner who cannot be acceptable in and of yourself. Others (who are not born again, from above) will not accept you, but will revile, despise, and persecute you. But God in Heaven will accept you, and this is the only way.


Source(s):
15 Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”
Mark 8:15