Jesus tells of a Pharisee who stood up and prayed for about himself. "God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector." (Luke 18:11 NIV).
Many of us will say we don't pray like the Pharisee with such a condensing attitude. But how often have you heard believers say, "Except by the grace of God there go I..."? Usually this expression is used when speaking about the homeless, the sick or someone bound by addiction.
This is nothing short of what the Pharisee stated in his prayer.
When we are in good spirits, health is strong and income is flowing we got to remember God has means of bringing a lesson of humility. Our fallen nature tends to self-glorify its efforts to reach some measure of success. As we all know, things in life change quickly and nothing in this world is forever.
Recently, my health started to fail mostly from stress. I lost a lot of weight so much that my bones ache when trying to sleep at night. I've had to use protein shakes. In that moment, the Lord taught me a couple of lessons.
The first lesson is that I was not drawing close to Him as I should. My prayer life had trickled to a bare few minutes. The reading of God's word was distracted by anxious thoughts. And the second lesson, my prayers were quickly becoming about me.
At times I prayed for others but with a self-assured attitude. I thought I knew best how to pray for others as if I fully understood the person's condition (which is an assumption that lends itself to arrogance).
I knew God was working on my heart. Before leaving New York, my wife and I had an opportunity to pray for a woman. Her husband has a virus the doctors were still trying to figure out. He's barely able to walk. When I started to pray, my voice started to break and it has hard to hold back the tears. I struggled to speak at times. Tears streamed down her face. In this moment, a self-centered prayer and using empty religious catches was broken. Only God spoke. A right prayer with a right heart.
Check yourself if you are using a lot of "me, I, myself" etc. You may need a Holy Spirit right size!
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