A sinner’s love
Have you ever wondered why God used so many people in the bible who were such extreme sinners? The Old Testament is full of examples of people who God used powerfully even though they had sinned horribly. How about King David? He was identified as a “man after God’s own heart,” but He murdered one of his closets friends so he could take his wife as his own. That wife, Bathsheba, who was also an adulterous wife gave birth to Solomon and Nathan. Those two boys were the offspring of King David, and they both were in the lineage of Jesus Christ. Solomon was in Jospeh’s lineage and Nathan was in Mary’s. Why would the Father use such horrible sinners to pave the way for His son’s life here on earth?
Have you ever questioned the Father about your own life? Have you ever thought He couldn’t possibly have any great plans in store for you because your life has been anything but righteous or holy. I know the feeling. If you looked up the definition of sinner in the dictionary, my picture might be there, or at least, it used to be.
I wrote a message on January 3, 2024 called “Accounts will be Settled in 2024.” The Lord was sharing with me the important message of forgiveness for His church this year. He told me that He was going to be moving powerfully by His Spirit, and those who were not willing to live in forgiveness would themselves not be forgiven. It is a serious and sobering lesson, but the Father was expanding that message in me this past week as it pertains to love.
To show me the importance of forgiving others in the same way that we have been forgiven, He shared with me the parable of the slave in Matthew 18:23 who was forgiven a great debt only to turn on his fellow slave by physically assaulting him and throwing him in prison until he paid back the small debt that he owed him. This past week, the Father took me to Luke 7:40 to the parable of two debtors. He wanted to show me the correlation between forgiveness and our potential for love. Luke focuses on the love that a sinful woman had for Jesus because she recognized the great amount of sin in her life that needed to be forgiven.
Luke describes the account beginning in Luke 7:36. Jesus was invited to dine with Simon, a Pharisee, at his house. While Jesus was dining, a woman, who was known in the city simply as a sinner, came to Him. She poured an expensive vial of perfume on His feet, and she cried over His feet and dried them with her hair. The Pharisee thought this was not appropriate because she was a sinner. Jesus answered the Pharisee in Luke 7:41 saying, “A moneylender had two debtors: the one owed five hundred denarii, and the other, fifty. When they were unable to repay, he canceled the debts of both. So which of them will love him more?” Simon answered and said, “I assume the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.” And turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she has not stopped kissing My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason, I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but the one who is forgiven little, loves little. “
I asked the Father about this correlation between forgiveness and love. I asked Him if Jesus was saying that everyone who is forgiven much will love much? I thought of the parable in Matthew 18:23 where the slave did not love much even though he had been forgiven much. The Father explained to me that Jesus was speaking of the potential to love much. The woman realized the amount of grave sin in her life, and her actions spoke of her repentance and gratefulness for her forgiveness. Jesus said, “For this reason, I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much,” The Pharisee had not shown any action towards Jesus because he did not see his life needing much forgiveness. It says in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but Jesus was making a point that some of us have more or greater sin than others. I would recognize myself as being one of those types of sinners like this woman who wept at the feet of Jesus.
Those who recognize the greatness of their sin have the potential for much love. They have the appreciation for their forgiveness that requires absolute sorrow and repentance at the feet of Jesus. These type of people God will use mightily because they know how to love God and others in the same way they were shown the love of Jesus through His forgiveness. King David was such a man. When he repented for that sin with Bathsheba, he was distraught and feigned living. He fasted and prayed to the point of death asking God to spare his son, but also, he wept and cried at the feet of God in repentance for his sin. God can use a man like that because He sees the humility in their heart and the love for Him and His will over their own selfish will and desires. God is looking for the action of love that shows repentance. “For this reason, I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much.”
In the parable of the Prodigal son, the younger son came back to his father with a humble and contrite heart. He recognized his great depravity and was grateful for the forgiveness of his father. His action of love was in his returning to the father while understanding that he had no place or right to ask anything of him. He was relying solely on the merciful and forgiving heart of his father. The eldest son was angered because of the love the father bestowed on the younger son. He was not aware that his father gave him credit for his obedience to him until the father told him that everything that he had belonged to him. Jesus said in John 14:15 that our love for Him would be measured by our obedience to Him. The older brother obviously loved the father as evidenced by his obedience, but his appreciation for the love and forgiveness of the father was not as obvious as it was with the younger brother. Maybe, he did not recognize any obvious sins in his life towards the father that might need his great love and forgiveness, or maybe, he never took the time to search inside himself for any sin within his heart.
God will use each of us according to the measure of love He has given us. Some of us have been given a greater measure of love because of the amount of sin that has been forgiven. That measure is only a potential though as it requires action to be utilized. The Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14 describes how God will take from us gifts He has given us and give them to another if we do not use them. If we are given a greater measure of love because we were forgiven more, we must fully act on that gift and love God and others as much as we are allowed according to our measure. That is what the sinful woman did at the feet of Jesus.
In Matthew 26:6, Jesus went to Simon the leper’s home for supper. While He was there it says that a woman came and anointed His head with alabaster perfume. That is the same type of perfume that was used by the woman in the Gospel of Luke. It is very expensive perfume, and at least, one of the disciples were agitated that she had not sold it and given the money to the poor instead. Jesus rebuked them and told them that they would always have the poor with them, but He would be leaving them soon. He said that the woman had anointed Him for burial, and in Matthew 26:13 He said, “Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told in memory of her.”
This story is told with many similarities in Matthew, Mark, and John. I am not trying to determine exactly who the woman was in those three gospels as there are differing opinions on that matter. The accounting in Luke though seems to be a different woman in a different city much earlier than the other three accounts, and it was the only time the Parable of Two Debtors is mentioned. This is likely because it is accounting for two different events. I like to believe that the sinful woman in Luke’s gospel was also the woman who later anointed His head with perfume for His burial. Why? Because God likes to use extreme sinners to perform mighty deeds. We know the woman in Luke was forgiven many grave sins, and the woman who anointed the head of Jesus in Matthew was proclaimed by Jesus to have acted in a way that was so great that it would be spoken about wherever the gospel was preached in the whole world. That sounds like something the Father would do for the Son.
There are some differing opinions as to whether Jesus was anointed before His burial or not. It has to do with the difference between anointing a body for burial and preparing a body for burial. Because it was late into the sixth day, the day before the Sabbath, it is possible that the body of Jesus was only prepared for burial and not anointed. It says in the scripture that some of the women went to anoint the body of Jesus after three days, and He was no longer in the tomb. If He had not been anointed, the act of this woman in Matthew 26 was even more significant because she was the only one who would have anointed Jesus’ body before burial. That might be why Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told in memory of her.”
This message is not being written to argue or discuss the historical truths or evidence of the life and death of Jesus. I am not trying to even prove that the events were at different times or that the woman was the same woman. I mention the possibility of it being the same person at two different times to make the point that God uses deeply flawed people to perform some of His greatest works because they have such a great potential for love. It is from that love that they can serve God in the manner that they do. When egregious sinners are forgiven and they recognize and act on that potential, they can move mountains and shake up the world. There are plenty of examples of it happening in the scriptures. I just mentioned a couple of them. If you believe that you have been forgiven of an extremely large amount of sin, I encourage you to use that potential for love and let God do in you and through you what only He can do. Your part is to act on it by showing your absolute sorrow and repentance at the feet of Jesus and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit in your life. In this manner, you will have the essence of love living in you. Let Him fill the void that occurs when all of your sin is removed from you. That void is why you have so much potential for love. All you have to do is let go of your sin, and let the Spirit of Christ in.
You can read more about this and other truths by obtaining a copy of “Prodigal to Prince” by Beau Walsh at BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com.
