the biggest sinner in the room
This week I have an audio for you (yay!). The was recorded at my church, New City during a congregational prayer time. But if you prefer to read, here’s a transcript, but I hope you’ll listen in here as well!
There’s this truth from Luke chapter 7 that’s been resounding in my heart and mind lately. It’s a time when a Pharisee, a teacher of the law, had Jesus over for dinner when a woman interrupts the dinner to anoint Jesus’ feet with her tears and perfume.
The people in the room knew who she was – she was a sinner of the more obvious kind. But the woman knows who she is too – and that’s why she came.
Jesus, knowing the Pharisee’s harsh thoughts about the woman, responds to the situation and his unspoken words by saying:
“He who is forgiven much loves much, but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
The truth is, we all need to be forgiven much, but it’s our awareness of this that makes our love for Jesus either grow or shrink.
This makes me wonder where I minimize the cross.
Where do I shrink the cross by not admitting that my sin is as evil, and big, harmful, and horrible, as it is?
How often do I think someone else’s sin just couldn’t be forgiven, but mine, well, mine’s not so bad so it can be forgiven?
When we shrink the magnitude of our sin, we internally minimize our need for the cross and the power of Jesus’ blood over us.
When we minimize our wonder and awe at His love, we shrink His holiness and perfection and justice and in doing so, we shrink His unrestrained mercy, love, and grace.
We shrink the cross.
But!
Because of His cross, I can be the biggest sinner in the room and admit it because his mercy, his grace, His cross is bigger than my sin.
I can repent because I know I am hidden in Christ. I know His blood on the cross was enough to cover me. I know He delights in freeing me to walk in the light of forgiveness as His child.
I can say, I’m worse than I thought I was at first, but it’s okay because I’m far more loved than I ever thought imaginable because His grace is bigger and the cross looms larger in my life.
Will we let these truth lead us – lead us straight to the cross? Lead us to admitting our sin and need for Jesus more freely? Repenting more often – even when it hurts?
Do you know, in Christ, that:
You are fully known.
You are dearly loved.
You are fully forgiven.
May the cross loom large in our hearts and minds and life, because we know we are desperate sinners, and even in our admitting it and fighting for repentance, we are loved more deeply that we ever dared imagined.
*I’m deeply indebted to many for the illustration of “the cross chart“, but specifically, my grace-filled and adoring husband (!!), Sonship, Parakaleo, and my friend, Kristy, whose husband who posted it in the link above!
