The Music And The Dance

DAY 4

“To follow Jesus we have to believe the gospel deeply.”

At the end of the story in verse 50, Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” It’s through faith that we receive forgiveness and are reconciled to God. That’s part of understanding the gospel, but there’s something else. This story is not just about the facts of the gospel, but deep faith in the gospel. When Jesus says the one who has been forgiven much loves much he doesn’t mean there are only a few people, the really big sinners, who can ever love much. He is challenging all of us to believe more deeply our utter need for the gospel and to believe more deeply in the beauty and power and grace of the gospel for us! Jesus brings the gospel into the center of a situation in which what he is dealing with is a man who is self-righteous, unhappy with Jesus, and judgmental toward others. Jesus brings the gospel into the middle of this situation because deeply believing the gospel solves all of those problems. So much so that you can flip it and say if you are self-righteous, if you are unhappy with Jesus and if you are judgmental toward others you do not deeply understand and believe the gospel.

Jesus isn’t just telling us how forgiveness is received but how love is awakened. Notice the question in verse 42, which will love him more? Look at verse 47 again, Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven — for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” We said one of the problems with this man, Simon, in this story is that what he thought he already knew made him in some sense blind or insensitive to what he needed to deeply see and believe. I wonder if that is what happens to us. We think we do believe in and love Jesus so we don’t go deeper like we could and should.

In the book by Ann Voskamp titled: One Thousand Gifts, she cites some interesting research about gratitude. A couple of university professors and scientific researchers did what is probably the first comprehensive study of the quality of gratitude. What they discovered is that there is a big difference between what people say and what they actually feel. There is a big difference between what they know intellectually and what they actually experience within.

Let me read one quote:

People generally do not make efforts to actively infuse their daily experiences with greater emotional quality. Although most people definitively claim that they love, care, appreciate, it might shock many to realize the degree to which these feelings are merely assumed or acknowledged cognitively, far more than they are actually experienced in their feeling world.

In the absence of conscious efforts to engage, build and sustain positive perceptions and emotions, we all too automatically fall prey to feelings such as irritation, anxiety, worry, frustration, self-doubt and blame. (Rollin McCraty, “The Grateful Heart,” The Psychology of Gratitude, ed. Robert A. Emmons [New York: Oxford University Press 2004], 241, emphasis added.)

What this means is that you can think you are a thankful person, claim to be a thankful person, know that you have a lot to be thankful for, be able to list all the things for which you should be thankful and therefore assume that I am grateful when in fact what I feel is dissatisfied and irritable. What’s true of gratitude is true of this whole dynamic of the gospel and faith and love. We can really believe in a sense and not deeply believe as we should. We can know so much about the gospel that we think we are believing the promises of the gospel more than we actually are in our daily lives.

Stop and ask God to show you how you can deepen your faith in, and appreciation for, the gospel. How can you cultivate a gospel-centered heart of deep love for Christ?
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Continue reading the Bible. Keep reading the gospel of John. Write down your questions, thoughts and insights as you read. Don’t forget to review your memory verse also. ____________________________________________________________________________________
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~ by Larry Kirk on January 22, 2012.

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