Consider this

    You cannot make yourself go sleep. You can close the curtains, put on your pajamas, fluff your pillow, get in bed and shut the lights off, but that is all you can do. As soon as you start to think, “I need to go to sleep right now!” you are in big trouble, because the more you think about going to sleep, the less likely it is to happen. Focusing on sleep is completely counter-productive. The most you can do is to put yourself in a position to sleep. After that, sleep comes at its own time, not at your bidding.     I believe that holiness comes in a similar way. No one cannot manufacture a holy life on his or her own. In fact, focusing on being good is more likely to produce pride rather than holiness. All anyone can really do is put themselves in a position to be made holy.     I think that is the point that Jesus is making in John 15 when he says to his disciples, “I am the vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit”. Spir

   The best stories often have an unexpected twist. That is certainly the case in Jesus’ story about the Pharisee and the tax-collector (Luke 18:9-14).    Pharisees were the religious leaders and they were considered the best people in town. They knew God’s law and followed it meticulously. Tax collectors, on the other hand, were among the most hated people. They often collected more money than they should and they were considered traitors because they worked for the Roman government.    To Jesus’ original audience, it would have been obvious that the Pharisee was the good guy and the tax collector was the bad guy.    The Pharisee went to the temple and prayed, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give a tenth of all I get” (verse 12). He is a good guy!     The tax collector was so bad that he could not even look to heaven and so he prayed, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”

               “You are fat!”                 Those three words became the story that my friend’s fourteen-year-old daughter told herself.   In fact, she believed that story so strongly that this once bubbly, happy, certainly not overweight, young woman began struggling with her self-esteem and, eventually, became anorexic.                 What would have happened had she believed a different story?   What if “You are amazing”, or “You are smart”, or “You are beautiful” were the words that shaped her?   Stories are powerful and what we do with them can have long-term effects.                 Jesus knew the power of stories.   In fact, most of his teaching falls into a category that we call “parables” which are simple stories with a point.   However, Jesus used stories in another, even more powerful way: He told new stories!                 One day a group of religious leaders came to him and said, “We caught this woman in the act of adultery.   What should we do with her?”