Come Before God Without Presenting Your Résumé

Luke 18:9-14 presents two men who went to the temple to pray. One spoke before God about his religious practices, fasting, and offerings. The other stood at a distance and asked for mercy.

Jesus said that the second man went home justified.

The parable was directed toward people who trusted in their own righteousness. That trust can appear quietly in our lives. We make good choices, serve others, avoid certain sins, and then begin using those things as evidence that we stand in a better position before God or other people.

Obedience loses its purity when it begins to feed superiority. We also lose the ability to understand those who struggle with sins different from our own. A heart supported by personal performance often notices other people’s failures quickly while facing its own need with little honesty.

The tax collector brought no arguments. He brought his need. His posture does not celebrate sin. It recognizes that God’s mercy is our hope.

Come before the Lord with that kind of honesty. Examine what you have been using to feel worthy. Before God, your security rests in the grace received through Christ.

9 ¶ And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:

10 ‹Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.›

11 ‹The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men› [are], ‹extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.›

12 ‹I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.›

13 ‹And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as› [his] ‹eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.›

14 ‹I tell you, this man went down to his house justified› [rather] ‹than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.›