Month: October 2015

Jesus’ account of the Pharisee & Tax Collector from Luke 18:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable:
    “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men–robbers, evildoers, adulterers–or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
    But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
    I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

    Can we infer from Jesus’ story that behavior does not matter, that there is no moral difference between a disciplined legalist and a robber, evildoer, and adulterer. Of course not. Behavior matters in many ways; it simply is not how to get accepted by God.
    The skeptic A. N. Wilson comments on Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and tax collector, “It is a shocking, morally anarchic story. All that matters in the story appears to be God’s capacity to forgive.”
    Precisely.
–Philip Yancey

Isn’t it good to know that no matter our errors, mistakes, poor choices, and sin… God’s grace and forgiveness are big enough to take care of them?

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority. Rather, he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself. He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life. He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is, in the sight of God, more important than angels. In himself, nothing; in God, everything. That is his motto. He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him and he has stopped caring.
–A. W. Tozer

I hope that I can stop being fooled about myself. That I will stop telling myself lies and stop believing them, as well. I want to accept the truth – only then can I move forward and receive real help to provide me with true health.

The sick person who refuses to admit his illness may find himself at the point of death with no way to reverse the damage. But the sick person who honestly admits the truth and goes to the doctor early has a much greater chance of getting the medical treatment needed for complete healing.

I know that I am weak. I know that I am helpless. But I know that God is all-powerful, and that He loves me immensely. And so I want my motto to be: “In myself, nothing; in almighty, loving God… Everything!”

I want to stop caring about what the world thinks about me by me only caring what God thinks about me and allowing that to drive me toward greater caring about the world so that I truly can love my neighbor even more than I love myself.

Father God:
Inflame my coldness with the fire of Your love. Enlighten my blindness with the brightness of Your presence. Turn all earthly things to bitterness for me, all grievance and adversity to patience, all lowly creation to contempt and oblivion. Raise my heart to You in heaven and suffer me not to wander on earth. From this moment to all eternity will You alone grow sweet to me, for You alone are my food and drink, my love and my joy, my sweetness and my total good.
–Thomas à Kempis

An amazing prayer that I hope I “grow into.”

Often we are blind. We act as if those around us were not really people like us. If we see them bleed, we pretend they aren’t really hurting. If we see them alone, we tell ourselves that they like it that way.

Jesus wants us to see their needs, their loneliness, their longings, and he wants to give us the courage to reach out to them. If we are to do that, we need to do two things: we will have to take risks as well as get beneath the surface of people’s lives.
–Rebecca Pippert

My Prayer Today: Open My Eyes Lord, Help Me See Like Jesus.

As we find ourselves in the midst of Presidential debates and polarizing political discussions, this quote comes at an appropriate time:

A political movement by nature draws lines, makes distinctions, pronounces judgment; in contrast, Jesus’ love cuts across lines, transcends distinctions, and dispenses grace. Regardless of the merits of a given issue — whether a pro-1ife lobby out of the Right or a peace-and-justice lobby out of the Left — political movements risk pulling onto themselves the mantle of power that smothers love.

If I cannot show love to such people, then I must question whether I have truly understood Jesus’ gospel.
–Philip Yancey

Is your compassion large enough to allow you to retain love and humility while you are also standing up for the things that you believe in. Jesus stood up for what He believed in with love and humility all the way to the point where they nailed Him to the cross. And then, and THEN, instead of spewing anger at those who put Him there, He looked at them with love and prayed: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

May we have the same heart of love and compassion and humility while we also hold to our standards. May we look at others, not with anger and hatred for being on the “wrong side” of an issue, but rather look at them with compassion, hoping to one day win them to the side of Truth.