Luke 7:47 "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Today's episode talks about Jesus' call for us each to love others as He loves us. I felt the Holy Spirit even gave me words from the Lord directly for all of us on this topic. God is so good! Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Whoever Has Been Forgiven Little Loves Little
Luke 7:47 "Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
I usually don’t have a scripture verse for these episodes in advance. I usually ask God to give me one right before I write it, or I look in my Encounter Ministry notes, or my prayer group notes. However, yesterday when I was listening to another podcast this story from the Bible came to me clear as day. This is not necessarily strange because as you know I sometimes get my episode ideas from other podcasts like The Big Life Devotional, Elevation, or Father Mike’s podcasts. However, this time the podcast I was listening to was not talking about this story at all. The story just popped into my head and I felt as if that was definitely the verse I was supposed to use today.
I chose Luke 7:47 as the main verse because that was the main point I felt the Holy Spirit emphasized when I got the verse, however, it probably won’t make any sense without the context of the whole story. The story is called “Jesus Anointed by a Sinful Woman” and it is found in Luke 7:36-50. “When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
Actually now that I am writing I see why this came to me while I was listening to the other podcast. The Big Life Devotional Podcast with Pamela Crim was talking about loving other people yesterday. As soon as she said do we love others, this story came to mind. I think the point the Holy Spirit wanted me to make is about forgiveness. In this verse Jesus is forgiving this woman of her sins. The reason she was crying and was washing Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointing them with perfume is because she knew all of her sins. She didn’t come into that house pretending to be anything different. She knew she was full of sin and that she was in the presence of the Lord. She knew she had a lot to repent for and she knew Jesus could forgive her sins. She wasn’t afraid to approach Jesus. She didn’t let her sins keep her from coming into the presence of God. She approached him, bowed at his feet and washed his feet. She humbled herself with the faith that she would be forgiven.
Today’s verse says, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” The person who owned the house was thinking in his head that Jesus didn’t know all of her sins. He was thinking if Jesus was a prophet, he would know her sins and he would not let her touch Him. What Jesus is saying here is that if she wasn’t a great sinner, if she didn’t really have many sins, she wouldn’t have humbled herself, she wouldn’t have sat at his feet and washed them with her tears. She loved Jesus so much because she knew how much sin she had and how great of a thing it was for Him to forgive it all. She loved Him so much because she had so much sin.
What the Holy Spirit was saying to me yesterday was that we should be more loving to others because we have been forgiven of so much also. I feel like I am struggling to get you to see what the Holy Spirit was showing me, and yet I am trusting what He wants you to hear, you will hear. What he showed me was that we struggle to forgive others, even when they had done little offenses to us. Sometimes, they haven’t done anything to us and yet we don’t love the person because we don’t like how they look, how they think, how the believe, or how they talk.
We judge others so much and God is saying, “Why are you judging them when I am not judging you? Why are you acting as if you have done nothing wrong? Why are you judging my creations? I created each person, who are you to judge them? You have been forgiven of so much, I have overlooked so much for you, why can’t you do the same? I love you my children with an everlasting love and unconditional love and I am asking you to do the same. I know you don’t all look alike, sound alike, dress alike, believe the same things and that is ok. I still call you to love one another unconditionally. I know you can’t do this on your own and yet if you only say the word I can help you. If you strive to love everyone, I will make your efforts fruitful. First, you must make that choice. You must choose to love others, even those you don’t agree with. When you wish to judge someone, imagine me up in heaven using those same standards to judge you. Is it worth it? Do you want me to use your standards to judge you? Remember all you have done, remember all your imperfections and remember that I have forgiven them all and I ask you to do the same towards others. Spread my love like wildfire. I promise if you start to lead with love your whole life will change. You will be friends with people you never expected. You will learn things you never expected. Trust me my children and start loving more and judging less.”
Well, I did not expect for the Holy Spirit to speak directly too us, although I did pray for this episode to be His words not mine and I did let Him know I was struggling to get His point across, so thank you Lord for your amazing words this morning. I will end with that because He has said it all.
Dear Heavenly Father I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we can’t thank you enough for showing up and speaking to each one of us directly. Help us to ponder your words Lord. Help us to see how we can live into those words. Give us the grace to lead with love, let that be our default Lord!! Help us to stop judging, help us to love first. Lord, we need a lot of help in this area. We ask you to rain down your love, your grace and your strength on us so we can follow your command to love all. We love you Lord and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I wanted to let you know that I will be celebrating 60 years marriage with my parents this weekend. Their love is a love of the ages. Not only do they love each other so much even after 60 years, 11 children and countless grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren, but they love others too. They are a great example of what this episode is about today. They have taught us to love others, even those we struggle to get along with. My whole family will be in town for this celebration and several days to follow. I am not planning to post episodes while they are in town. I am planning to enjoy this short time with them. If the Holy Spirit wakes me up early to write an episode or creates some down time to do that then I will obey. Otherwise, I will meet you guys again in July! I can’t believe it could be that close to July. If you know my parents feel free to wish them a Happy 60th Anniversary. I look forward to seeing you again soon! Remember Jesus loves you and He wants you to share that love with others. I love you all too! Have a blessed weekend!