The Pharisee And The Tax Collector

Luke 18: 9-14

The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed (exalting himself) ... but the tax collector stood at a distance ... beat his breast and said, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner" ...

I was once that Pharisee, having done everything my church said to do, and not doing what they said was a sin, and I thought I had earned my own way into God's Heaven. 

So God, in His mercy to me, allowed me to stray so far from that self-righteous path that I would recognize myself as the sinner that the tax collector was. Then in His grace He drew me to Himself, and revealed to me His unfathomable love for me! 

God loved me, one who could never deserve or be worthy of even a glance from Him; lavished His unconditional love over me, drowning me in His passion!

I still cannot fathom how God could consider me worth His consideration, but He considers me with extremely high value. His thoughts certainly are not my thoughts, so I must be in error, because He is True. 

He loves me with the emotional passion of a newlywed groom for his new bride. And I cannot help but love Him back! He is so kind, so gentle with me; He is my Provider and my Source of everything I need and want. 

He is my King, and I am His child, His princess. One Day I will reign with Him on His throne as His queen, governing in His Kingdom. 

This is the future of all who will allow the Lamb of God to be their personal Sacrifice, dying the death they deserve, and allowing Him to be Lord (Boss) over their lives. 

God is not willing that anyone perish, but that all would come to repentance. 

Each one of us deserves death because of the defective human nature we are born into. That flesh is weak in the face of the World's allurements and the enemy's accusations. But we still convince ourselves that we deserve good, the best. 

God wants to give us His best, not because we deserve it, but because He is good. But we can only receive His best when we face the truth of the whole situation, and let God be God. 

He sent His only-begotten Son to be our atoning Sacrifice for each one of us individually (He saves us one-by-one). 

Then He left us here to be His church, to lead others to Christ. And to help one another. To love Him and to love one another.

Until Jesus returns to this Earth to conquer all evil and set up His Kingdom to rule. Then when Satan is released, the Earth will explode, the Universe will implode, and He will "make all things new," as a New Heaven and a New Earth. Then the increase of his Kingdom will have no end, as we enjoy His unlimited creativity throughout all future eternity, for ever and ever!

Even so, come, Lord Jesus!