Hunger

Lk 11:8

Righteousness is something to be hungered after... Is this something we can appreciate all the time?
When we're being “righteous”, do we then realize how unrighteous we still are? Even when we sit in church, study our bibles, pray—even then, we must still be hungering after righteousness, starving for righteousness, begging God for righteousness.

When a beggar sits in church, his state has not become less pitiable because he sits in church. When a criminal sits in church, he has not become less guilty because he sits in church. When a Christian sits in church, he has not become less human, less sinful, because he sits in church.
We all are guilty, we all need the righteousness given by God through Christ, we all need grace—not some more than others, because we're all guilty of the same calibre of offenses; we're all death-row inmates. Christians do not need to ask, seek, or knock on God's door any less because of their relationship with Christ than do sinners, for sinners they are.
This is not a process that stops—even in heaven, where the angels prostrate themselves before God and the saints worship God day and night.
Self-righteousness does not become a Christian. Smugness does not become a Christian. Glibness and irreverence does not become a Christian. If a Christian fails to plead with God every day for the righteousness only He can provide, then that Christian is failing to be a Christian.