God, be merciful to me, a sinner!

The words in my title are from Luke 18:13.  They come from the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.  The Pharisee was a man who was grateful for who he was.  He thanked God for not being an extortioner, not being unjust, not being an adulterer, or even for the fact that he wasn't a tax collector.  Now if your anything like me, you might begin to say, wow, I have prayed a prayer like that.  Lord, thank you for bringing me to this place in life, with opportunity to hear and learn wisdom in such a fashion that I am not an unjust man, and that I have been faithful to my wife and not ever committed adultery, that I work hard for what I have and have earned every penny.

But hold on partner, God does not see it the same way.  He looks at what the Pharisee says, thank you God for the goodness that is in me and He looks at what the tax collector says, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner and he declares that only one went away justified.

The words of Luke 18:14 then go on to say, "For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted." 

So I ask what are we to learn from this scripture?  That we should not be grateful?  Maybe we should be careful to give God the credit for the goodness we see in ourselves?  No, you see I think the Pharisee was grateful, but he was also deluded.  Much like most of us are so easily deluded into thinking we have a little goodness in us.  There had to be some redeeming feature in me that caused God to choose me.  But I think the point that God is trying to make with this parable is that we should recognize the truth about ourselves.  If we try to exalt ourselves by looking towards our goodness, when the light comes and shines brightly upon us, we will be seen for what we are, which is simply sinners.

So we should simply BE the tax collector, God have mercy upon me, A SINNER.  Now I don't think God is asking us to simply be self deprecating and say this even if its not so.  I think He wants us to say this because its true.

We never loose our sinful flesh.  Only those who accept that they ARE sinners, and begin to TRUST in who God says we are by His actions and not ours, only those will be exalted.  It is only as we humble ourselves with accepting who we are and who we are in God, that the new creation of God becomes formed in us.

And as this new creation is formed in us, all kinds of great things begin to happen.