April 16
Josh 13:1-14:15 | PS 85:1-13 | Prov 13:7-8 | Luke 18:1-17
My dog, Henry, holds onto and guards his little chew bones with tenacity. He is protective of them and lets my other dog, Clarabelle, know when he believes she is wanting them. This might be an odd illustration, but that is how we humans hold onto our so-called knowledge, he elevated his bones like we elevate our knowledge. Through the years we gain trinkets of information: remembering some, partially remembering others, and totally forgetting the majority. Yet, we hold onto this knowledge with tenacity. We form our entire basis of how we see the world and how we see God through this lens. All the while refusing to acknowledge the truth that none of us are really that smart, that what we do know is much less than what think we know, that if we were to place the totality of our knowledge in a large basket, when compared to the world's knowledge, it wouldn't even cover the bottom. Most fail to seek and find God because they have elevated their position and understanding above what it deserves. God does not share heaven with adults; He shares it with His children. When Jesus gave His revolutionary sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, he begins it in Matthew 5:3 with, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven." To be "poor in spirit" is to be emptied of pride, to approach God in humility and in submission. So, we must take very seriously and continuously self-examine ourselves as Jesus drives home the point in Luke 18:16-17, "Then Jesus called for the children and said to the disciples, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.”"
Life is long, and a walk with God can begin at any age, can become stale at any age, and can be redirected by our flesh to take on very ungodly features if we do not remain child-like and open. We tend to see the Pharisees as the bad guys in the story, but we need to remember they were seen as those closest to God, those who walked the walk most intensely, they were seen as the most deeply religious and strongest followers of God at that time. So, we need to pay close attention to the Parable of the Pharisee and the tax Collector, realizing that a tax collector was the exact opposite of a Pharisee, seen as a traitor to the Jewish people, placed at the same level as a murder, a thief, etc. We read the parable in Luke 18:9-14, "Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ “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.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”"
Many will state, "it's not how you start, but how you finish". But that also misses the point, for it is how you live, day-to-day, year after year, until our life on earth ends. We get a beautiful example in Caleb of one who started strong, lived strong, and ended strong, as we read in Joshua 14:10-12, “Now, as you can see, the Lord has kept me alive and well as he promised for all these forty-five years since Moses made this promise—even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am eighty-five years old. I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then. So give me the hill country that the Lord promised me. You will remember that as scouts we found the descendants of Anak living there in great, walled towns. But if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.” It comes down to a walk of faith. We must remember that faith is more than simply intellectually acknowledging God, it is trusting Him or placing our full weight on Him and believing in those things that we cannot necessarily see, placing no limitations on our God to act both in the natural and the supernatural. Many minimize or water down what faith means, to which we should soberly read Jesus' words in Luke 18:8, "...But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?” Lastly, don't miss Jesus Christ in Psalm 85:10, "Mercy and truth have met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed" Mercy and truth met in the Person of Jesus Christ. When the sacrifice of Jesus, who is truth, allowed God to show mercy upon us."
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: