Love Much

I hope and pray that you have gotten off to a great week this Monday morning. I praise God for the wonderful services we had yesterday especially since we had two laity speakers who brought us the message of God’s love and hope.

I ask you to join me in lifting up the young man who died of an overdose Sunday morning and who was a nephew to our sister Alicia. May the peace of Christ and the comfort of the Holy Spirit be near to them in a special way.

Today’s devotional text is Luke 7:36-50. This is the story of the sinful woman who came to anoint Jesus with an expensive perfume. Naturally, for a woman to approach a table full of men was in and of itself radically odd, let alone make her way to one of them and actually touch him! Yet that is exactly what this sinful woman did, she knelt before Jesus as “she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them” (Luke 7:38).

As Jesus illustrated with his parable, this woman was a “heavy debtor” when it came to sin. In fact, Jesus himself declared, “her many sins have been forgiven” (Luke 7:47). It is safe to say that she was loaded with sin. Then, Jesus said, “But he who has been forgiven little loves little” (Luke 7:47b). This verse has always perplexed me. I’ve always asked myself, “Who has little to forgive?” It’s kind of like, “Well, mine was a little white lie; at least it wasn’t a BIG one!” Who could be the one who indeed has “little to forgive?” The answer is no one, really. Every day we fall so short and yet are on a daily quest to fall less short and less short each day. But we must come the throne of grace each day.

But the one who really and actually believes that he/she has little to be forgiven, as Jesus implied, is the one who will love little when it comes to God and the things of the kingdom. Jesus was not implying, in my opinion, that there was indeed someone who could make such a claim as much as he was clarifying the end result of a person who was a bit on the self-righteous side.

May we live each day in thanksgiving for the abundance of God’s grace upon us and let us love him more each day as we daily seek to fall less short and less short everyday.

Prayer: Lord, help me to live in the spirit of this sinful woman who anointed your feet in Simon’s house. She gave us an example of how we should express our thanksgiving – bowing down before in you in humility and gratitude. Give us your grace this day. Amen.

By grace alone,
Pastor David