Luke 18:10 Two men went to the temple to pray... Jesus begins to show us how our prayers and praise look like to God. On the outside one of these men seemed holy and spiritual, while the other was no-one anyone wanted for a friend. Yet when we listen to their prayers and see how God answered we get a shock.
The Phairisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer, "I thank you God that I am not a sinner like everyone else..." Wow that sounds terrible to us, yet it sounded just right to the Pharisee... "I'm certainly not like that tax collector." he went on. You see the Pharisee knew that the tax collector had made his fortune by cheating people and stealing their money. That was clearly a sin, and the Pharisee never considered that he should forgive. His attitude of unforgivenesss grew from his own self-righteousness. As Robert Browning put it, "Oh the gift that God would give us, to see ourselves as others see us!"
In this story,Jesus holds up a mirror and when we look at our own reflected attitudes we don't look good at all! We saw ourselves as without any kind of blame and we viewed others as the bad guys. We thought that they were the ones to blame for the struggles we were going through. Yet when God shows us how our prayer sound in heaven, we would see them as pretty shallow and self centered. We are completely blind to our own failures and what keeps us in spiritual blindness is simply a lack of forgiveness for others. We see our neighbor as the source of our problems, but Jesus has placed that cheating tax collector in our lives to be our opportunity to forgive and come into real fellowship with God!
But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even left his eyes to heaven as he prayed, "...O God be merciful to me for I am a sinner!" If we had been there at that moment it is possible we could have had a completely different reaction than God did. We might have heard those words and jumped up and said, "Yes! I knew it all along! What a liar that guy was!" But God did not do that at all. In fact when God looked down and heard that prayer he responded more like this , "Yes! He finally sees it! I will forgive him. He will become my child and we will be able to talk every day!"
If God seems distant in our prayers, in our worship, then around look for the tax collector. He is sure to be somewhere near to us. He might be the other half in our marriage, someone who has cheated us at work, or even one of our own children. Tax collectors are never far away. In fact a lot of us are the tax collectors! An opportunity for forgiveness is always near. Jesus taught us to pray daily, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." Don't allow the darkness of self righteousness and unforgiveness cloud your prayers. When we forgive and cry our to God for forgiveness he comes and washes our mirrors clean, and we will begin to see His face reflected again. When we see Him clearly then real worship begins!
The Phairisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer, "I thank you God that I am not a sinner like everyone else..." Wow that sounds terrible to us, yet it sounded just right to the Pharisee... "I'm certainly not like that tax collector." he went on. You see the Pharisee knew that the tax collector had made his fortune by cheating people and stealing their money. That was clearly a sin, and the Pharisee never considered that he should forgive. His attitude of unforgivenesss grew from his own self-righteousness. As Robert Browning put it, "Oh the gift that God would give us, to see ourselves as others see us!"
But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even left his eyes to heaven as he prayed, "...O God be merciful to me for I am a sinner!" If we had been there at that moment it is possible we could have had a completely different reaction than God did. We might have heard those words and jumped up and said, "Yes! I knew it all along! What a liar that guy was!" But God did not do that at all. In fact when God looked down and heard that prayer he responded more like this , "Yes! He finally sees it! I will forgive him. He will become my child and we will be able to talk every day!"
If God seems distant in our prayers, in our worship, then around look for the tax collector. He is sure to be somewhere near to us. He might be the other half in our marriage, someone who has cheated us at work, or even one of our own children. Tax collectors are never far away. In fact a lot of us are the tax collectors! An opportunity for forgiveness is always near. Jesus taught us to pray daily, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us." Don't allow the darkness of self righteousness and unforgiveness cloud your prayers. When we forgive and cry our to God for forgiveness he comes and washes our mirrors clean, and we will begin to see His face reflected again. When we see Him clearly then real worship begins!
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