Simple



Luk 18:14  Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right 

	with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to 

	end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you 

	will become more than yourself." 


	There is such a need to be unelevated in the self-determination of status. 

This is necessary to access God's presence, and it is also essential in 

attaining peace and self-confidence and assurance. When there is constant 

awareness of the status of self and others there is great vulnerability to 

becoming quite defeated as your own shortcomings may become magnified. When, 

however, there is a continual humility and reaching out to God with a heart made 

pure in a sense of need and prayer, there is an ability to be untouched by the 

whisperings of dissent and discomfort that attends it. 


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Luk 18:17  Mark this: Unless you accept God's kingdom in the simplicity of a 

	child, you'll never get in." 

	Quite often there is an attempt to analyze and define everything in 

wonderfully complicated terms. It can become an all consuming occupation, trying 

to bring this conformed understanding to every element of the kingdom. I love 

this verse, though, that says it is really very simple and that getting to God 

requires no special mental prowess, just honesty and humility before God. 


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Luk 18:18  One day one of the local officials asked him, "Good Teacher, what 

	must I do to deserve eternal life?" 

Luk 18:19  Jesus said, "Why are you calling me good? No one is good--only God. 


	Jesus could have let this one slide. He could have, after all, allowed 

some praise to be given to Him-He was God. He knew, though, that there was 

praise that could only go to His Father and that there was no honor in receiving 

the praise that should go to another. He had a great diligence to remain focused 

on the center of all glory and honor, His Father.  


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	As we are given occupations and things to which we must set our hands, it 

is easy to get caught up with pursuing their excellence and doing our best with 

them as unto the Lord. Our lives can get caught up in a bit of a whirlwind, with 

a strong motivation to complete everything and then, somehow conform to all the 

dos and don'ts of what we are taught. Our relevance in the kingdom and our 

significance can become for us the center of focus as our status and position 

are the motivations of excellence. I'm glad, though, that no matter how far one 

may progress in worldly acclaim, there is an equality that places everyone in 

the same position before Christ. When we first come to Him, it is just us and 

Him, with no works or titles even in focus. From that moment on the reality is 

that this simplicity never changes. Though there is an excellence that flows 

from a life of knowing Him, it will have its greatest impact as the stuff that 

flows never gains in importance above its source, simply knowing the Father. 

Everything we attain in material things, social positions, and spiritual 

elevation will not our true identity define. If they were all completely removed 

we would still retain the treasure and the place we found in Him. It will always 

simply be about us and Him, nothing more nothing less. 



3/24/04