Pharisee
or Sinner?
If
my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my
face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will
forgive their sin and heal their land. – 2 Chronicles 7:14
How many
times have we seen this verse on social media? People begging for Christians to
bow down and pray for God to heal our land from this awful disease called Covid.
People asking God to restore Himself to leadership in this land. People
demanding that God restore Donald Trump to the presidency. People living in
comfort crying out for God to increase their prosperity.
The one
thing we haven’t seen a lot of are those same people admitting their own sins.
They’re too busy pointing their fingers at the sins of others to acknowledge
that maybe they should change their own hardened hearts before they demand the
same of others.
If
Christians truly lived as Jesus lived, our country wouldn’t need social media
posts demanding our will from God. We’d be too busy praying and serving,
extending kindness and grace and a helping hand. But that might cause us to get
our own hands dirty. It might make us admit we’re wrong in our judgements of
people we do not know.
In Luke 18,
Jesus told a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector both going to the
temple to pray. The Pharisee was thanking God that he wasn’t like other
sinners. He was praising himself for fasting and tithing. The tax collector
would not even lift his eyes to heaven as he begged God for mercy on himself, a
sinner.
Which are
you? Are you the Pharisee who is so busy praising himself that he has forgotten
how to humble himself before God? Or are you the sinner who names himself as
such as he bows before God Almighty? Reread 2 Chronicles 7:14. Are you the haughty
Pharisee or the humble sinner? Your words and actions reveal your answer.
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