Spiritual Arrogance

Luke 18:9-14 records two prayers; a self-righteous prayer and a self-critical prayer. The two men were praying in the same place and at the same time. The one thanked God that he was not evil like other people and recounted to God the good things that he had done in his life. The other asked God for mercy for his short comings. Here’s the thing… we have all done some good in our lives and it would be easy to make a list of those things and carefully recite them to God. Almost as if God didn’t know those things already and needed to be reminded. The best approach is to have a short term memory of the good things we have done and to have a heightened sensitivity about our short comings and our need to be more Christ-like. Let’s face it, if we were in a contest with Jesus Christ and trying to best him with our good works we would come in second… every time. Realizing that let’s be truthful and self-critical in our prayers. The self-critical man went home “justified before God”.