Day: August 2, 2020

Ever need to choose a gift for someone who already has everything? God is one of those, times ten to the power of infinity. Using the mathematical symbol for infinity, the lemniscate, we could write it One of Those x 10∞

That is to say, God has everything, and we can give him nothing he doesn’t already have.

Yet God is pleased to accept the glory that we are pleased to give Him.

Where do you get that, Luke?

From Joshua’s words to Achan.

Achan had disobeyed God, was responsible for thirty lives lost and had dug himself into the hole of a situation that would become his grave. The night before, when the culprit was still unknown by name, God had pronounced the sentence, capital punishment for a capital crime.

To Achan, the culprit, the persistent rebel, the troubler of the nation, the condemned, Joshua’s invitation was startling…

Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee…

Luke 18:10-11a

The Pharisee’s prayer begins by reporting to God what he was doing, thanking God. “God, I thank thee….”

Mirrored here is the autobiographical self-reporting so prevalent in prayer. Examples include, “God, we thank thee…”, “Father, we are thankful…”, “Father, I pray…”, “We ask you, Lord…” Once you begin listening for the Pharisee’s gramatical style, you’ll hear it in prayers everywhere. Isn’t it an irony how easy it is to make prayer an excercise of informing God and men of our own prayerfulness, thankfulness, etc?

In contrast, the publican was direct. None of this “I pray”, “I ask”, but, “God be…” Jesus comments:

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for…