In the perfect example of just how different God’s thoughts are from your own, Jesus gave a parable of two men who went up to the temple to pray.
One was a very religious Pharisee and the other a not-so-religious publican.
The Pharisee was like many you probably know. He believed that authentic spirituality was simply a matter of making sure that God never forgot all of the things he had in common with Him. And when he went up to the temple to pray, he got straight down to the serious business of reminding Him:
He stood, said Jesus, and prayed thus with himself. God I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. (Luke 18:12)
How commendable. His long list of self-congratulatory likenesses to God would have made Isaiah blush. The very idea that God didn’t think like him and he didn’t think like God simply never crossed his self-admiring mind.
It wasn’t that he had completely failed to find Isaiah’s universe of difference. He just hadn’t found it between himself and God. He had found it instead, like many you probably know, between himself and a world fairly brimming with insufferable sinners. Like this awful publican.
The publican, on the other hand, was the very antithesis of the Pharisee. A tax collector for the occupying Romans, he was hated, despised, and reviled by everyone who knew him. And rightly so.
Unlike the Pharisee however, he, standing afar off, would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, God be merciful to me a sinner (Luke 18:13).
No laudatory self-congratulations here. No winsome comparisons to lesser men, even more sinful than himself. Only a painful outpouring of just how wretchedly wicked he was in his own sight. To his own great shame, he was in full agreement with Isaiah already.
His very prayer was his confession of acknowledgement that, in his own eyes, he had nothing whatsoever in common with God. He smote his breast repeatedly as if to say, “The problem lies in here, with this heart of mine, that is nothing like Yours.”
Jesus spoke this parable to certain ones who, according to His own description, trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others.
And when He had finished, He proceeded to utter the single most astonishing example of My-thoughts-are-not-your-thoughts that has ever been found anywhere, before or since:
I tell you, Jesus said, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other; for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Luke 18:4).
According to Jesus, it was not the self-sacrificing-twice-a-week faster, not the “of-all-that-I-possess” tither, not the non-adulterer, not the non-extortionist, not the non-publican, not the just one – but the sinner – who went down to his house justified.
And to add astonishment on top of astonishment, according to the words of Jesus, it wasn’t even the “former sinner” or the “repentant sinner.”
It was simply the God-be-merciful-to-me-a-sinner sinner.
Can you imagine those in Jesus’ audience howling in utter shock and disbelief?
“Did He just say that the unchanged-unrepentant-still-a-sinner sinner goes home justified before God? Impossible!”
That was precisely a universe away from what they had expected Him to say. And unless you’re God – and last time I checked you’re not – that’s precisely a universe away from what you would have expected Him to say as well. And if you say it isn’t, you just made God a liar.
Because, God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts. And these are definitely God’s thoughts. So that means they can’t possibly have ever been your thoughts before you heard them from Jesus.
You may not recognize it, but Jesus just said exactly the opposite of what you expected Him to say. In fact, He just said exactly the opposite of what everyone, except God Himself, expected Him to say.
This is not the way you think. This is not the way you have ever thought. This is the way God thinks. And God’s thoughts are never your thoughts. Not this time. And not any time. Not this thought. And not any thought.
And if you think that, in ten thousand lifetimes of thinking, you would ever have come to the same conclusion that He just did, it’s because Isaiah has failed to convince you that there is an immeasurable-by-a-universe difference that always lies, without exception, between every one of His thoughts and every one of yours. And in failing to believe Isaiah, you have made both Isaiah and God liars.
You could never conclude what Jesus just concluded. Because you never start from where He starts. Not once. Not ever. No exceptions.
Stop thinking that when Jesus speaks, it will ever confirm something you already knew and already believed. That’s impossible.
Because My thoughts are not your thoughts. Not once. Not ever. No exceptions.
If you think Jesus just said exactly what you would have said in this situation, that just proves beyond any doubt that you don’t really understand what Jesus just said! Not by an entire universe! Because He just said what you still can’t imagine saying: He just said that God always chooses the sinner over the righteous!
And even after hearing Him say it right here – clearly and plainly and unambiguously – your mind still can’t accept that that’s what He really means.
Surely He’ll qualify His statement later. Because that just doesn’t make any sense at all. Everyone already knows, just by virtue of their own common sense, that God would never really choose the sinner over the righteous. Never. Not once. Not ever. No exceptions. Everyone knows that without even having to think about it. Right?
But this is what you haven’t yet fully grasped. In your entire lifetime, there will only be two things that you can ever mark down as absolute certainties without even having to think about them:
God doesn’t think like you. Ever. And you don’t think like God. Ever.
Without these two ideas constantly acting like the powerful corrective lenses in a pair of glasses, not only will it be impossible for you to see your way clearly to even a single correct conclusion, but without them, you will blindly, ignorantly, and arrogantly succeed beyond your wildest dreams – at exactly what you never intended:
Exactly like the Pharisee, every time without a single exception, you will take up the position that is precisely the opposite of God’s. And exactly like the Pharisee, every time without a single exception, you will never even know it.
Co-mingling God’s thoughts with your own by imagining that even one of His thoughts is somehow within even a universe of likeness to even one of yours invariably produces this particular unexpected and contradictory outcome: wrong will always appear to be exactly right, and right will always appear to be exactly wrong. Every time. Without exception.
Here, like the Pharisee, if you begin wrong, you are guaranteed to end wrong. There are not a hundred, or fifty, or even five correct places to start on your journey to truth. There is only one. And this is it:
God doesn’t think like you. And you don’t think like God. Period.
So put your glasses on.
And keep your glasses on.
Because if you don’t, you will never see what God sees, like God really sees it.
And the blind will continue to lead the blind until they both fall into the ditch (Matthew 15:14).