Two Men went up to the Temple to Pray . . .

In our Wesleyan tradition we need to learn to live in the healthy tension between the call of God to holiness and the humility of knowing that our performance often comes short of God's glory. Our Savior can give us grace to live above willful sin in word thought and deed. Our Savior also taught us to pray every day, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors!"
Can we live with the paradox of not sinning and confessing our sins? Can we seek to be God's instruments and not seek to use God selfishly?
There is a prayer, an ancient prayer a dear friend and colleague taught me to pray. It is called The Jesus Prayer. I'm sure that a number of Nazarenes would not want to pray this prayer because we have been forgiven and are no longer in active, willful, outbroken sin, no longer in rebellion against God. . . .
I can still hear the wisdom of my elders saying "If we start calling mistakes 'sin,' it won't be long until we are calling sin 'mistakes.'" In other words we cannot excuse any willful sin in our lives.
Still the fact remains that Jesus has given us the Lord's Prayer-- and also he has given us the story of the two men who went up to the temple to pray to keep us from trusting in our own righteousness, and comparing it with others. Do you remember that story?
That ancient prayer, the Jesus Prayer simply goes like this:
"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."