Devotionals

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JUSTIFYING OURSELVES

© 2008

Frances Loftiss Carroll

“Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Him. And He said to them, ‘You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.” Luke 16:14-15 (NAS) Mac Arthur Study Bible

How silly we are to reason in our minds that we can justify whatever we say and do by our “goodness” or our “reputation” as a good person in the place where we live. The truth is, God looks upon our hearts and our lives and our motives and He knows what is behind everything we say and so. Many people are so caught up in the “look at me game” that they are able to conceal the “real” person nobody but them sees. But God sees us as we are and we need to be honest about who we are.

Try this, turn off all the distracting things in your life, music, radio, TV, Ipod, Blackberry, computer, telephone, cell phone, anything that makes a sound and distracts you and sit in silence for 15 minutes. Alone, no family, no kids, nothing to distract you and say, “Lord, show me myself as you see me.” Now wait….

Bet it didn’t take you long until you got distracted or changed your focus did it? We aren’t through yet…get up and go to the largest mirror you have available and look in that mirror. Again ask, “Lord, show me myself as you see me.” Stare yourself down in the mirror and look inside yourself. Look into your eyes and ask yourself if you are pleased with the person who lives inside your shell? God wants more of you and He wants you to become focused on HIS character not yours.

We find a lot of ways to tell ourselves a lot of wrong things about ourselves. We justify how we are, the decisions we make, how we live, what we do, how we think and react to life by a system we have deemed as acceptable by the world. The problem is, we shouldn’t live for the world’s view of us if we are a Christian. We live for God. We realize that what we are, what He wants us to be, where He wants us to go and what HE wants for us is for us to follow His ways. We can’t justify the accumulation of “stuff” and “things” to be our priority and goal in life. Stuff doesn’t matter, God does! What we have to do is say to the Lord, “Show me your ways O Lord and give me the courage to follow them today and everyday.”

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