Forgiven Little…

Last night I lead worship for a service where Evan Wickham taught a great message about the paper leaves we wear pretending that we are better and more righteous than we are but still have no fruit(if you want to check it out you can go to http://www.horizonsd.org and find it under video archives- August 11). Towards the end of the message he read the verses in Luke 7 about the prostitute who poured the alabaster jar of perfume on Jesus’ feet at the Pharisee Simon’s house. Simon thinking he was going to make Jesus look bad started murmuring to those around him about how wrong it was that Jesus was allowing her to be touching him since she was such a well known sinner. At this Jesus tells a story about a creditor in Luke 7:41-42 “Two men 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 canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Jesus’ purpose in telling this was to show Simon that this woman had been forgiven so much that she loved Jesus far more than Simon did. Simon who had been forgiven little loved Jesus very little. As Evan was teaching this my head kept running with this thought. I am Simon in this story. I don’t have a history of prostitution or any of the things that I think are “big” sins and it grieved me to think that I have been loving the Lord little. I can remember being disciplined as a child. My parents would frequently relieve my punishment as an act of grace towards me. Sometimes the punishment was small like having to go to my room for the evening without any tv. My mom or dad might come into my room after an hour and talk to me about what I had done wrong to see if there was any repentance and eventually say “Ok, you can come out and join us. You don’t have to stay in here all evening by yourself like we originally said.” I would be relieved and thankful but it wasn’t as big of a deal as when I was grounded for a month from my radio (arghhhhhh!) and my parents released me from that punishment after a week. Then, ahhhh how happy I would be and how grateful for grace! What joy and happiness and love for my parents. Now, this is such a small small small example I am using as a metaphor, just as Jesus’ example about money was small in comparison to the sins He would die on the cross for later that week. Here is what hit me though. Although I view myself like Simon the Pharisee who believed he needed less forgiveness because his sin was less (yuck its gross even typing out that sentence and admitting that I thought that), the truth is, I see my sin as even greater than the prostitute’s now. My sin being that I have not loved the Lord as greatly as I should. I have believed that He didn’t have to give as much up for me. He didn’t have to forgive me as much. Oh my heart hurts, as I sit here and look at it, seeing it’s depravity. So here is my public confession:

I have thought too highly of myself and loved the Lord too little.

Lord forgive me. Show me how to love You more. Carefully show me who I am so that I can be the one at Your feet with tears and an alabaster jar…