We might think that a devout believer is justified by God and a scoundrel cannot be. However, as Luke 18:9-14 reveals, the opposite can be true. A temptation for believers is to compare ourselves to people rather than to God. It is easy to find people who have done wrong. When we compare ourselves with others, we are actually justifying ourselves. With God, no amount of self-justification will work, because we have all failed to measure up to his high standards of perfection. The abject sinner has an advantage. He has exhausted his efforts for self-justification and found out the hard way that it simply does not work. He fails miserably by both human and divine standards and has no delusions about himself. We all have only one hope, confessing our faults and being justified by God not self.
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