“To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.’” (Luke 18:9-10 NIV)
Do you think of yourself as a basically decent person? A law-abiding, contributing member of society? So did the Pharisees. They were complacent about their moral choices. They looked down upon those who were different.
We all fall short and mess up, but some of us choose to ignore that truth. We pretend that our sins are minor compared to those of others. This leads us to judgmentalism and a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude.
Jesus admonished us to be humble. Both the words humility and human come from the same root ‘hum’--which means ‘to be grounded.’ Humility is essentially an acknowledgment of our sinful human nature. It allows us to stay grounded in the reality of who we really are. Without it, we have delusions of superiority. We imagine that we are sustained and propelled by our own convictions, abilities, and efforts. We become moral snobs, disdainful of those who make mistakes. We forget that if it were not for grace, we too could be in a similar situation. Even the opportunity to make good choices is purely a gift from God.
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