NorthStar Church Blog

Jesus ends this encounter by telling the woman that her sins are forgiven, her faith has saved her, and she can go in peace. Think about how those words must have sounded to someone who had probably lived with shame and the judgment of other people for years. Notice what Jesus does not tell her. He does not tell her to spend the rest of her life punishing herself for her past. He does not tell her to work hard enough to prove that she deserves another chance. Jesus sends her away with peace because her relationship with God has changed.

Some Christians believe that Jesus has forgiven their sins, yet they continue living as though God’s acceptance rises and falls with their daily performance. When they have a good spiritual day, they feel close to God. When they fail, they assume God has pulled away.

Lamentations 3:22–23 (NLT) gives us a better picture: “The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.” God’s mercies are new every morning. That does not mean we receive a new salvation every day. It means we wake up each morning trusting again in the faithful love of the God who has already made us His own.

Imagine someone gives you an unlimited lifetime membership to a gym. Everything has been paid for. The membership is active, and you have complete access. But after receiving it, you never actually use it. You keep the membership card in your wallet. You tell people you are a member and may even talk about how great the gym is, but you never enjoy what has already been provided for you.

Christians can live something like that spiritually. We know what Jesus accomplished for us, but we can still carry guilt He has already removed. Romans 8:1 (NLT) says, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” When we fail, we should confess and turn back to God, but we don’t have to spend weeks trying to pay for what Jesus has already paid for.

When your love for Jesus begins to grow cold, the answer is not simply to try harder to feel something. We need to slow down and remember the cross, remember His mercy, and remember that we have peace with God through Christ.

Reflection Questions

1. Are you living in the freedom of God’s forgiveness, or are you still punishing yourself for something Jesus has forgiven?
2. What does it mean for you personally that God’s mercies are new every morning?
3. Has what Jesus did for you become familiar rather than amazing?
4. Begin today by thanking Jesus for three specific ways He has changed your life.

Simon had already looked at the woman, but Jesus wanted him to look again. Simon had seen her reputation and her past. Jesus saw the person standing in front of Him and what was happening in her heart. There is something powerful about Jesus saying to Simon, “Look at this woman.” Simon had looked at her without really seeing her. He had already decided what kind of person she was, and once he put her in that category, he didn’t need to know anything else about her.

We can do the same thing. We reduce people to their worst decision, their political position, their addiction, their divorce, their reputation, or some other label. Once we have decided what kind of person someone is, it becomes easier to dismiss them.

Jesus consistently saw more. Matthew 9:36 (NLT) says, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus saw broken people and moved toward them with compassion. Simon saw brokenness and used it as a reason to stand at a distance.

Imagine riding on a subway with a father and his young children. The children are loud, restless, and disturbing everyone around them, while the father seems completely disengaged. After a while, another passenger becomes frustrated and asks the father if he can do something about his children. The father seems to suddenly become aware of what is happening. He apologizes and explains that they have just left the hospital where the children’s mother died. He quietly admits he doesn’t know how to handle what happened, and apparently neither do they.

Knowing more of their story immediately changes the way you see them. The children’s behavior has not changed, but your response probably has. We rarely know everything another person is carrying. Remembering that should make us slower to judge and quicker to show compassion. Jesus knew everything about the woman in Simon’s house, including her past, and He still treated her as someone worth seeing and loving.

Reflection Questions

1. Is there someone you have reduced to a label instead of seeing as a person Jesus loves?
2. Are you more likely to respond to broken people with criticism or compassion?
3. How does remembering your own story change the way you see someone else’s?
4. Ask God to help you see one difficult person through Jesus’ eyes today.

Jesus’ story about the two debtors in Luke 7 helps us understand what forgiveness really means. The creditor forgave both people and canceled their debts. Neither debtor negotiated a payment plan, promised to work harder, or found enough money to settle the account. They simply could not pay what they owed, so the creditor chose to cancel the debt.

That gives us a helpful picture of what Jesus accomplished for us at the cross. Sometimes we think of forgiveness as God simply deciding our sins no longer matter, but the cross tells us something very different. Our sin mattered deeply because it separated us from a holy God. Colossians 2 says that the record of the charges against us was canceled and nailed to the cross. God did not ignore our debt. Jesus took it upon Himself and paid what we could never pay.

First Peter 2:24 (NLT) says, “He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right.” When you really think about those words, they make the cross incredibly personal. Jesus carried my sin and yours. He willingly took responsibility for a debt that belonged to us so that we could be forgiven and brought back into a relationship with God.

Imagine a teenager borrowing his father’s new truck and accidentally backing it into a concrete post. He hears the crunch, gets out, and immediately realizes how much damage he has done. The tailgate is crushed, the bumper is bent, and he knows the repairs will cost far more than he has.

When he gets home, he must tell his father what happened. He admits that it was completely his fault and braces himself for the response. His father listens and tells him that he forgives him. The son is relieved, but the father’s forgiveness does not magically repair the truck. The body shop will still send a bill. New parts will still have to be purchased, and someone will still have to pay for the repairs. If the father chooses not to make his son pay for the damage, then he will pay the cost himself.

That picture helps show what happened at the cross. God did not pretend our sin did not matter. Jesus willingly took the cost upon Himself. Isaiah 53:5 (NLT) says, “But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed.”

The woman in Luke 7 understood how much she had been forgiven, and that shaped how she responded to Jesus. Simon did not see much in his own life that needed forgiving, so he responded very differently. When our love for Jesus begins to cool, we sometimes just need to remember what He has done for us.

Reflection Questions

1. When was the last time you stopped and really considered what Jesus has forgiven in your life?
2. Has the message of the cross become so familiar that you sometimes take it for granted?
3. How does understanding what Jesus willingly took upon Himself affect the way you think about Him?
4. Take some time today to thank Jesus specifically for what He did for you at the cross.

We compare almost everything. We compare houses, careers, salaries, marriages, children, accomplishments, appearances, and possessions. Unfortunately, we can bring that same habit into our spiritual lives.

Simon was doing exactly that. He looked at the woman kneeling at Jesus’ feet and thought, “I may not be perfect, but I’m certainly not like her.” Jesus responded by telling him about two people who owed money. One owed 500 pieces of silver, and the other owed 50. Their debts were obviously different, but Jesus wanted Simon to notice something much more important. Neither person could pay what he owed. The issue was not which person had the better-looking debt. The issue was that both were bankrupt. We often play Simon’s game ourselves. We may think, “I’ve never done what she did,” or “At least I’m not as bad as him.” Comparing ourselves with someone else may make us feel better temporarily, but it cannot make us right with God.

Romans 3:20 (NLT) says, “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.” Jesus wanted Simon to understand that the difference between him and the woman was not that she needed forgiveness and he did not. They both needed it. She simply understood her need for Jesus more clearly.

Imagine two people standing on the California coast who decide to swim to Hawaii. One is an average swimmer. The other is an Olympic champion. The Olympic swimmer would obviously go farther than the other person. But eventually, both swimmers would face the same problem. Neither of them can swim to Hawaii. It would be ridiculous for the stronger swimmer to look back and congratulate himself because he had made it farther than the other person.

That is the problem with spiritual comparison. Someone else’s failures may be greater or more visible than ours, but none of us can reach a perfectly holy God through our own goodness. The closer we get to Jesus, the more we will realize that comparison doesn’t work. We begin to realize that we all come to Him empty-handed, depending on what He has done for us.

Reflection Questions

1. Who are you tempted to compare yourself with spiritually?
2. Does comparison usually make you feel superior or inadequate?
3. Why does remembering that neither debtor could repay destroy spiritual pride?
4. Thank Jesus today that your relationship with God does not depend on being better than someone else.

You can be close to Jesus and still have a heart that is growing cold. Simon the Pharisee proves it. He invited Jesus into his home, sat at the same table with Him, and listened to Him speak. From the outside, Simon seemed exactly where a spiritual person should be. But something was wrong inside him.

When an immoral woman entered the room and began weeping at Jesus’ feet, Simon’s first response was not compassion. It was criticism. He looked at her and immediately thought, “She’s a sinner!” Simon sat beside Jesus, but instead of being amazed by Jesus, he analyzed someone else and was critical.

When criticism is our first thought, that can be a warning sign of a heart that’s growing cold. We become increasingly aware of what is wrong with everyone else and increasingly unaware of what is wrong within us. Jesus gave a similar warning in Matthew 7:3 (NLT): “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” Jesus was not telling us to ignore sin. He warned us not to be more critical and bothered by another person’s failures than we are about the condition of our own hearts.

The longer we follow Jesus, the more spiritually mature we should become. But a subtle danger also exists. We can become so familiar with church, Scripture, and worship that we begin measuring everyone else instead of examining ourselves. Before long, we can become experts at identifying everyone else’s sin while becoming too comfortable with our own.

Imagine two people walking into a hospital emergency room. One person looks terrible. His clothes are torn, his face is bleeding, and everyone can immediately see that something is wrong. The other person walks in wearing a suit. He looks healthy and feels fine. After running some tests, however, doctors discover that the second man has a life-threatening condition developing inside his body. His problem is just as serious, but much harder to see.

Simon could clearly see the woman’s spiritual wounds, but he could not see his own. Her sin was public, while his pride was private. Romans 3:23 (NLT) says, “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” When I remember my own need for Jesus, it becomes much harder to look down on someone else. If you find yourself becoming increasingly critical of others, it may be time to ask God to show you what is happening in your own heart.

Reflection Questions

1. Have you become quicker to notice other people’s failures than your own?
2. Who are you most tempted to criticize or look down upon?
3. How would remembering your own need for Jesus change the way you see that person?
4. Ask Jesus today to replace a critical spirit with a compassionate heart.