Luke 18:9-14: The lowest branches.(please click here for todays passage)

It is interesting and helpful to read this parable in a modern version of the Bible such as the ‘The Message’.

‘He told this story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people.’

We see that the Pharisee was a religious poser: ‘The Pharisee posed and prayed like this…’ His prayer was full of self-righteous self-congratulation. He was slapping himself very warmly on the back as he prayed and assumed that God shared his viewpoint.  He thought the Lord was very lucky to have him on His team.Watch out for the slightest hint of self-righteousness. If you allow it living space in your heart it will blind you to truth about yourself you really need to see. Ultimately it will keep you out of heaven. The New International Version says that he ‘prayed about himself’ (and the margin suggests that it could mean that he prayed ‘to’ himself). God wasn’t interested in such a self-interested prayer. It is humility that cuts ice in the realms above.

”Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’ 

Jesus commented, ”This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to be simply yourself, you will become more yourself.”

It remains true – and it always will be – that ‘everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’ (14; see James 4:10/1 Peter 5:6). Someone wrote that ‘in God’s garden, the branches that hang the lowest bear the most fruit.’

Without humility you will never face the fact you are a sinner; but it is imperative that you do if you are ever going to be made right with God.