A well-known sinful woman came to a place where Jesus was eating dinner with some religious leaders of His time. In her gratitude for forgiveness she had received, she poured precious perfume on Jesus feet and washed them with her tears. Simon, one of the leaders (a Pharisee) was shocked that Jesus allowed her do what she did.
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. (Luke 7:39-43 NIV) As Jesus taught Simon, so He teaches us, that we do not need to fear rejection from God when we bring our moral brokenness to Him. When we compose a summary of “our last 90 days” as some treatment programs ask of us, or work on our Step 4 moral inventory, we can easily feel the weight of the ugliness of our past. Memory by memory, God invites us to bring our sinfulness to Him so it can be included in the debt Jesus already paid for at the cross.
All that stands in the way of our freedom is acknowledging that we have sinned and subsequent trust in Jesus’ debt-paying work on the cross for us. We can’t pay our own debt. We can’t fix all that we’ve broken. However, God can, and does so, as we turn our will and our life over to His care. He frees us from every sin and heals us from every painful wound.
We love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19 NKJV)
As we become more aware of our freedom through Christ, joy and amazement and gratitude will grow within us until we sometimes feel like we might burst. This is what it means to truly be “happy, joyous, and free.”
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