Today’s Devotion
Topic: It’s Simply By Grace
Text: Luke 18: 9
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable. Amen
Some people feel very right about themselves, and they display that even before God. They don’t go to God in prayer to take after His nature. Neither do they go to plead for mercy so that the work of grace will continue to transform them into the image of Christ. They go instead with their own image or view of how right they are or have been.
Now, because they can go to that extent even with God, men who come around such people are definitely going to be in trouble. They look down on everyone and actually feel they are much better by their own standards of righteousness. Whiles others with an understanding that we can never be justified before the Lord except by grace are crying for mercy, they are busily listing to the Lord every “good” they believe they have done, so that the Lord will know how righteous they are.
To all such self-righteous men who look down on EVERYONE ELSE, Jesus advised with a parable saying: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—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 all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18: 10- 14)
Beloved, the choice is yours, which of these two men have you been, and which one are you going to be after reading Jesus’ thoughts about them?
The busier you are convincing God about your righteousness, the more all the opportunities to be cleansed and made whole by His mercies are being wasted. Also, the time you spend looking down on everyone else is enough reason why instead of being lifted up, you’re rather cast down. For ‘all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’
Beloved, meditate on this word and begin to pray. With a broken and contrite spirit, plead for mercy. Mercy for the wrongs you have done and the good (by God’s standard) you couldn’t do. Ask the Holy Spirit to renew your mind everyday to conform to the Word of God and the nature of Christ. He should grant you the humility to serve and love all men as our Saviour loved us and offered His life a ransom, even for the “most undeserving” among us.
We pray this way, and make efforts at all the above, believing that the righteousness of God, received by faith through Christ Jesus, will justify us before God, and not the deeds that we have done. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.” (Eph 2:8- 9)
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