This week the primary scripture for worship is Luke 18:9-14. As I have been preparing for the message and outlining worship I have been thinking.
Take a look at the scripture for yourself:
Luke 18:9-14 (NLT)
9 Then Jesus told this story to some who had great self-confidence and scorned everyone else: 10 “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a dishonest tax collector. 11 The proud Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: `I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else, especially like that tax collector over there! For I never cheat, I don’t sin, I don’t commit adultery, 12 I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ 13 “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, `O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ 14 I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored.”
The question that I have been asking for the past week or so to myself as a result of this scripture is where is my motivation. I feel like the Pharisee was bending to the standards set by us and not God. And in his complacency he was then blind to his brokenness and sin. Where as the tax collector knew exactly where he stood with God and sought forgiveness.
As I have been studying this I feel like complacency leads us to loose our spiritual luster. In Matthew the scripture speaks of it in terms of loosing our saltiness or our light for God is dimming. Take a look at the video from a little while back.
As we work with young people and go throughout life there will be times where we will forget where we stand and perhaps rationalize that we are in a better situation that we really are. When this happened then our growth begins to stop. We need to know where we are going and growing so that we can share this with our students and also so we may help them discern where they are growing too.
