Going Home Justified

“It’s true: there’s only one right way for human beings to worship. If Jesus is to be believed, only ‘tax collectors’ bring Him praise, for only they have grasped the great gulf fixed between their lives and His high call to holiness. And so the praise that binds our lives to God starts with a desperate self-assessment: ‘Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.’ Heaven is supremely deaf to homage not inspired by grace. Our prayers, our hymns, our offerings are either celebrations of Christ’s mercy, or else just glances in a mirror at things we like about ourselves. One qualifies as worship; the other as the grandest foolishness. Go worship now—and stay in grace.”