MAKING GOD A LIAR! . . . .

NOW IN THE FACE OF GOD'S DESCRIPTION of the human heart, we see what it was that the Pharisee did. In saying, "I thank thee that I am not as other men are: extortioners, unjust, adulterers," he was protesting his innocence of the very things that God says are in every heart. He said, "These things were true of the other men... but Lord, not of me!" And in so saying, he was making God a liar, for "If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar." (1John 1:10).

IF THE PUBLICAN IS BEATING upon his breast and confessing his sins, it is not because he had sinned worse than the Pharisee. It is simply that the Publican has seen that what God says is sadly true of him, and the Pharisee still thinks that outward abstinence from certain sins is all that God requires. He has not yet understood that GOD LOOKS, NOT ON THE OUTWARD APPEARANCE, BUT ON THE HEART.

HOW OFTEN HAVE WE, ALSO, protested our innocence... on the many occasions when God has been convicting others, and when He has wanted to convict us too. Child of God, if we feel we are innocent and have nothing to be broken about, it is not that these things are not there... but that we have not seen them. We have been living in a realm of illusion about ourselves.

GOD MUST BE TRUE IN ALL THAT HE SAYS about us. But we are blind to it. Maybe we are so occupied with the wrong the other person has done us that we do not see that we are sinning against JESUS in not being willing to take it with His meekness and lowliness. Seeing so clearly how the other person wants his own way and rights... we are blind to the fact that we want OURS just as much... and yet we know there is something missing in our lives. Somehow we are not in vital fellowship with God. The sin in question may be a very small thing, that God will so readily show us, if we are only willing to ask Him.

ONLY A DEEP HUNGER FOR REAL FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD WILL MAKE US WILLING TO CRY TO GOD FOR HIS ALL-REVEALING LIGHT AND TO OBEY IT WHEN IT IS GIVEN.