{"id":2192,"date":"2022-11-01T00:53:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T00:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/?p=2192"},"modified":"2022-11-01T00:53:48","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T00:53:48","slug":"open-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/open-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Tuesday,\u00a0November 1<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Open Heart<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: \u2018I thank you, God, that I am not like other people\u2014cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I\u2019m certainly not like that tax collector. <\/em><strong>Luke 18:11<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Jesus often used parables to bring across a message. These gems, the wisdom of God is also for us today. But we need the Holy Spirit to reveal these truths to us. When we depend on our own interpretations, we often \u2018miss the mark\u2019. Consider the account written in Luke 18. When reading the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, we look at the Pharisee and some of us easily judge his pride and arrogance. We choose between the two parties and can easily see ourselves as praying the tax collector\u2019s prayer \u2013 \u2018<em>I thank you, God, that I am not like the other people<\/em>\u2019. Often, we proceed by thinking about \u2018<em>other people<\/em>\u2019. But aren\u2019t we doing the same as the Pharisee did, when we judge the tax collector and others for being prideful?<\/p>\n<p>The Pharisee wasn\u2019t really speaking to God. He was acknowledging himself and his own efforts. In the process he was judging and belittling the tax collector in order to feel better about himself and his own efforts at righteousness. Today let us not judge, instead use our words to speak to God, thanking Him for sending His Son to save us all from sin.<\/p>\n<p>Jesus says in Luke 6:41: \u201c<em>Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother\u2019s eye, but do not notice or consider the log that is in your own eye?<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 Maybe the most important lesson in this parable is not to decide which one of the two we are, but to ask the Lord to show us our hearts. Maybe it\u2019s to make us stop and think about how we are towards others who are different to us. It\u2019s not about what others do or don\u2019t do, or about what I \u2018do better\u2019, but about who I am to others in His Kingdom.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prayer for today<\/strong>: <em>Father God, thank You for Your faithful love that never ends and that Your mercies begin afresh each morning. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me (Psalm 51:10). Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday,\u00a0November 1 Open Heart The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: \u2018I thank you, God, that I am not like other people\u2014cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I\u2019m certainly not like that tax collector. Luke 18:11 Jesus often used parables to bring across a message. These gems, the wisdom of God is also for us today. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2193,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2192\/revisions\/2193"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}