Reflections on a Pharisee and Tax Collector

Show me my pride;
    save me from it.
Awaken me to humility,
  its glory and grace.

Instead of questioning God's goodness and affirming your righteousness, question your righteousness and affirm God's goodness.  It is a safer path.

If you're busy looking down on others, it's hard to look up to God.

What would've happened if God had looked down on people and merely said, "I am so glad I am not like you!`"

Religious pride delights to talk about how it is doing more for God than other people are doing.

Sometimes the people who are closest to God feel the furthest away from him.

Looking up to heaven is the normal stance in prayer.  Humility waits for God to lift up its face to heaven in mercy.  Pride scorns being lifted up this way.

Humility beats the body down not to get God's notice, but so it can pay better attention to God and his ways.

The seed of humility first appears through our sins because of guilt and fear.  God's mercy frees us from guilt and fear.  Then humility can grow.

Sin is the misuse of the body.  Lust, greed, and anger squeeze the body for pleasure it cannot fully give, so such pursuits ultimately lead to emptiness.  Joy is found in the body humbled to its place of waiting on God.  Only in this can the body rest content.  The body is meant for the Lord and the Lord for the body just like the stomach is meant for food and food for the stomach.  Nothing else satisfies.

When the humble go to worship, they meet mercy.  When the humble return home, they discover grace.  Wherever the proud go, they bring condemnation.  When the proud return home, they find emptiness.

The humble often escape the notice of other people.  God sees them and blesses them.  The proud are often seen and praised by other people.  God escapes their notice.


(Luke 18:9-14)