Prayer
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer based on Psalm 51:17 & 1
Abba Father, my sacrifice of worship to You is my broken & contrite heart.
Because of Your unfailing love and Your great compassion
I know You will not despise or reject me.
Instead empower me and lead me in Your everlasting way of love and purity. Amen
Reading
As Jesus enjoyed a meal at the home of a prominent local pharisee named Simon, a woman who was well-known in the town for her very sinful lifestyle approached Jesus. Most likely, she was among the crowd of locals described in v.29, who had heard and received Jesus’ ministry. There, Luke reported: “All the people, even the tax collectors, when they heard Jesus’ words, acknowledged that God’s way was right.”
Something had shifted in this woman who had previously given herself over to a life of sin. Luke did not witness it, so he did not describe it, but by the time she arrived at Simon’s house, she had evidently done some deep repenting to God and had experienced His wonderful forgiveness. Only those who have been forgiven much will truly understand the depths of joy she experienced in that moment!
Knowing that Jesus was still in town, and hearing that He was at Simon’s home, she fetched her prize jar of perfume. Had this perfume perhaps been a tool of her previous trade? There at Simon’s home she poured it out as a love-offering of worship to Jesus. Could it be that she was, at the same time, signifying her once-and-for-all rejection of her previous lifestyle? Either way, it was a hugely expensive, deeply humbling act of love to Jesus.
The point Jesus makes in His response to her and to Simon’s self-righteous indignation is the lesson I see in this passage:
47 Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven – as her great love has shown.
In this verse, I see an invitation (even a veiled command) to turn our awareness of having been forgiven by the Lord into an expression of grateful love.
Has He forgiven you? Yes. Then live for Him as an expression of grateful love.
Has He forgiven you a great deal? Yes. Then lay everything you have and everything you are at His feet and live out every moment of your life as an expression of grateful love to Him.
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn this declaration over and over in your mind. Keep it in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will live every moment of my life in loving gratitude to Jesus for all His grace and mercy to me.
Holy Spirit, please empower me to turn every moment of today into a loving offering of gratitude to Jesus. And Lord Jesus, please accept my offering of grateful love. Amen.
Dave's Diary 
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