MAY 6, 2025 ~ FROM A PASTOR'S HEART

MAY 6 DEVOTIONAL BIBLE READING: LUKE 6:37-42

Have you ever looked at someone who is involved in sin or a sinful lifestyle and thought, "I am glad I am not as bad as them.” Have you ever sat in church and looked across the aisle and wondered, "What are they doing here, they sure don't live the Christian life?” Have you ever compared yourself to another professing Christian and said, "Well if they are going to heaven I surely am, because I know I'm closer to the Lord than they are?” We have a tendency to compare ourselves with others to justify ourselves and our own personal insecurities about our walk. Yet rarely, if ever, do we compare ourselves to someone who we think might have a stronger walk than we do. We always look for that person that makes us feel better about our own sins. Because surely our sins are not as bad as other people's sin.

Jesus told the story (Luke 18:9-14), of a Pharisee who went to pray, and he saw a tax collector there praying. The tax collector was on his face before God and asking God to be merciful to him, a sinner. The Pharisee stood there in his pride and said, "Lord, I thank you I am not like other men...that I'm not like this tax collector!" The problem was he was just like other men, he was just like the tax collector...but he could not, or would not see it. When we compare ourselves on our own scales we always come out looking pretty good. When we rate our sin against the sins of others, ours don't look that bad. In the first century it was a requirement of the law that a leper declared loudly when coming near others, "UNCLEAN!” It was an acknowledgment that they were diseased, even though their disease was obvious to all who saw them. We too are unclean; our sin is obvious it cannot be hidden. We need to acknowledge before God that we are sinners that our sin is just as bad as anyone else's, and we need to come to Jesus for cleansing. The next time we are inclined to compare ourselves with someone else, let's compare ourselves to Jesus. Then we will have a proper perspective of our sin.

Please share your thoughts.