On This Day: To Rest in What is Revealed

   In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 
   All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luke 10:21-22)

   One of the biggest things I want people to know is that eternal life is to KNOW God. Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). 

   Yes, that is the essence of what it means to receive eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus has secured the salvation by which we can return to the God who created us and know him as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

   This means that our daily interest should be in how well we know God. And, for some of us (at least people like me), how well I know God rests completely on how he feels about knowing me. 

   The stage on which Jesus has made his heart known to me over the years has been one littered by broken relationships. I grew up in a family that was broken. My attachment-light got stuck in the “always on” position because I was desperate to not miss the hope-springs-eternal time that someone might actually want to attach to me. When I learned that the term “hyper-vigilant” describes a mindstate that has been trained to be on guard against danger, I wanted to know how to bring that into my relationship with God.

   Or, how God was shining his spotlight onto my broken radar system so he could heal what was wounded and bring me to peace in my relationship with him.

   Since I had my first conscious awareness of God’s interest in me almost 6 decades ago, and then learned how to listen to him in his word in the most real and personal of ways almost 33 years ago, I can chart a relationship with God that has been growing because I am God’s child. My security with him doesn’t rest on how well I hang on to him, but on how settled his love is for me. My significance to him doesn’t depend on what I do for good, but what his goodness has delighted in for me before I was even created. My acceptance with God doesn’t rest on my good behavior that must always be that 1 ounce more than anything I do wrong. Rather, my acceptance with the Triune God rests on him accepting me in his beloved Son.

   No matter who I talk with, and no matter who I imagine might read this, my supreme interest is in how they know God. I regularly remind people to see the grace and peace of God in the Beatitudinal Valley because the way God blesses us is typically so different than religious (and irreligious) life has taught us. We need to attach to God in our poverty of spirit in order to know what it means to truly have peace with God. 

   Today it feels like God is comforting me in some of the most painful losses I have experienced as he shows me the reality of his desire to find me and have me as his own. Yes, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Yes, the judge of all creation. Yes, the eternal Father, the glorious Son, the comforting Holy Spirit. They have a personal desire for me to know them and have gone through hell (so to speak) to have me. 

   If no one has told you this, stop pretending, and meet with God as you are. Tell “our Father in heaven” how you are doing. Be the child. Lay your complaints before him. Tell him what you don’t understand. Be honest. Be real. 

   And then listen. 

   Yes, open God’s word and listen to him. He is speaking. His Holy Spirit is with us to teach us all things and bring to our remembrance things we have already known. Whatever stands out, talk to him like that is what he is saying to you. Converse. Dialogue. Meditate on what he says. Cling to it with all your heart. 

   And today, let my testimony that learning “the Son CHOOSES (desires) to reveal” the Father to his beloved brothers encourage you that he will do the same for you as much as for me. Why? Because the level ground at the throne of grace is faith. Not necessarily great faith. Not even mature faith. Just faith that comes like a child and wants to get to know God. Yes, get to KNOW him!

   Eternal life comes through believing in Jesus Christ. And Jesus gives eternal life to us because we must be alive to know the Triune God. As John wrote, “In him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4-5).

   The darkness has not overcome Jesus’ work to pour the love of God into my heart by the Holy Spirit he has given us. Come to Jesus as you are and let him overcome the darkness in your life so he can lead you to know God better than you have ever known him before. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: Down in Humility; Up in Exalting

   As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:57-62)

   My wife was just reminding me a few days ago about what happened the first time I was going to teach through the Beatitudes in our home church ministry. We were in a series through Matthew that brought us to chapter 5. I initially thought I could do a summary of the eight Beatitudes in one message.

   However, as I was meditating on them leading up to that particular Sunday, the things I was learning about what it looks like to be blessed by God surprised me. What I had once thought was a “to do” list for believers turned out to be a “God is doing” list for the kingdom of heaven. 

   This was so mind-changing that I knew there was no way I could make do with an eight-point summary. I had to lead our church through these one at a time so we could be transformed by the mind-renewal God had given us (Romans 12:1-2). 

   The next big surprise was that, when I announced my change of plans from one message to eight, people voiced their despair that I was going to take that much time to look at these qualities. As one man said, “You’re taking the highest standards of the kingdom of God and you’re going to take eight weeks to tell people who already feel like crap about our walk with God all the things we are failing at?!”

   I couldn’t help smiling at how God had prepared me that week with a far different view from what we had been taught. For the next two months, we had a very uplifting time of considering NOT what were these “highest standards” of what God required OF us, but what were the marks of GOD’S blessing when HE was working IN us. 

   In other words, the Beatitudes do not list eight things we are to do to be blessed. Rather, they show us eight of the qualities we will find happening in our lives when God is blessing us. For what I now call the “downside” of the Beatitudinal Valley, we don’t try to be poor in spirit so God will bless us; God is blessing us with the “poor in spirit” experience so he can give us his kingdom. We don’t try to mourn so God will bless us; we accept that God is blessing us when we find ourselves mourning whatever is wrong between us and him because he wants to comfort us beyond our comprehension. We don’t try to attain meekness; we accept God’s work of blessing us with the meekness that admits we can’t fix ourselves and so we surrender to Jesus’ authority to save us, heal us, fix us, and transform us. And we don’t try to make ourselves hunger and thirst for righteousness so God can bless us; we acknowledge we are being blessed when we feel starving for the righteousness we do not have because we know God will satisfy that longing. 

   The same is with the other four qualities that describe the “upside” of the Beatitudinal Valley. We don’t try to be merciful so God will bless us; we agree that we are being blessed (and have been blessed) when we see how God is leading us to be merciful towards others as he has been merciful towards us. We don’t try to earn God’s blessing by purifying our hearts; we rest in God’s blessing as we join his work of purifying us from the inside out. We don’t try to make ourselves peacemakers so we can earn God’s blessing; we receive God’s blessing of turning us into his peacemakers who want nothing more than to see other people experience peace with God. And we don’t try to earn brownie points for good behavior when we are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, but we know we are being blessed by God when our walk with Jesus Christ receives the same hatred as he did when he was here.

   I share all that because today I needed to be reminded that we can face the absolutely most painful, hopeless, discouragements, and those days when feelings can’t even be described in words, and know that “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psalm 51:17). 

   Two other Scriptures I really need to review so often are,

   For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)

   “All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2).  

   Today I’m being honest with God about things in me I can’t even explain. I’m trembling at his word that speaks of the exact things I am feeling and facing with such a gracious invitation to “draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). And I’m going out on a prayer walk along a favorite trail that will help me experience the blessings of the Beatitudinal Valley God has set before me today. 

   And even though I don’t know all the specifics that await, I do know that humbling myself under the mighty hand of God today will lead to him lifting me up in due time however he decides is the most blessed way of doing so. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Desire to Follow Jesus is Broken

   And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:23-27)

   I not only believe that all scriptures must be understood in the context of all Scripture, but I also expect that whatever God speaks to me about through his word each day will relate to the context of my life’s journey and my present circumstances.

   So, when I came to another familiar section of Luke’s gospel, I had to consider it from this dual context of what Jesus meant then, and how he intends to apply it in my life now. 

   As I looked up words and meanings, I discovered that Jesus’ choice of words in “would” had the distinctive meaning of desire. This is talking about someone who hears about Jesus and feels a desire to “come after” him, or to follow him. What Jesus is then clarifying is what it looks like to do so.

   My personal context is a few decades of living by the focus of “leading people to freedom in Christ so they can experience God in a real and personal way.” And what I have discovered during those decades is that Larry Crabb was right, more people in churches are committed to self-protection than to knowing and doing the will of God.

   So, how do we deal with such a clear description of what it means to follow Jesus when most church folks have no desire to be free of their self-protection? Answer: we show people that even the most broken person can desire to follow Jesus as described and then be honest about who is following Christ and who is not.

   I recall two ladies in one of our churches who were facing broken soul-condition stuff at the same time. Both had buried trauma under their preferred system of self-protection. Both had a role in the church that was seen by everyone. To deny themselves would mean to deny the right to continue relying on self-protection to bury their wounds and to follow Jesus into their journey of healing and freedom in Christ. 

   One of these women decided she would not trust Jesus to heal her and set her free and so she refortified her self-protection and began destroying anyone who threatened to expose her. She idolized the role she had created for herself in the church and would not let anyone take that away from her. The other woman began addressing what was broken in her with a sense that she could submit to Jesus for her freedom and healing because she really wanted to be free to follow him in life. 

   What stood out so clearly was that the one devoted to self-protection maintained a role in the church that made her look like a strong and devoted Christian while the other appeared to be really struggling in her walk with God but was actually submitting to him in one painful step after another of facing trauma I had never even heard of. 

   It is no accident that I so recently saw the difference between a “sinful” woman who came into a house worshiping and loving Jesus with all her heart, and the religious hypocrite who hosted the meal harboring a narcissistic heart under a cloak of self-protective pride. It was the woman who loved Jesus for forgiving all her sins who was truly denying herself to follow him, while the religious elite had no love for Jesus because his role portrayed him as righteous, and he got applause for his acting. 

   We cannot obey this calling to deny ourselves and follow Jesus grudgingly just to ensure we have our fire insurance policy from hell and some hope of a RIP in heaven. It begins with a desire to follow Jesus that then applies itself in self-denying ways throughout the day, throughout conflicts, throughout facing trauma, throughout falling into sin, so that whatever messes and successes we face, our desire to follow our Savior is applied in real life for God’s glory and the good of his people. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: My Story of What God Has Done for Me

   The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him. (Luke 8:38-39)

   First, we now need to clarify that “story” is an account of something that happened. It would be considered true unless otherwise stated. The need to clarify this is because the world wants us to think that if someone is “just telling stories” it means things that are not true, when a story is an account that could just as well be a true story as someone telling fables. 

   All that to say that my “story” is a true account of God’s work in my life, including my story of telling you how God focused on my story today!

   This morning’s story of meeting with God began with my usual keeping short accounts with God about anything sarky or sinful I had not confessed to him, telling him how I was doing, and then wondering to him what I was supposed to “get” out of the amazing (but familiar) account of Jesus delivering a spiritually-traumatized man from demonization (Luke 8:26-39). 

   However, it was when I got to Jesus’ final words to the man that I knew what God was addressing with me, that my focus in life is to tell people what God has done for me, and that did NOT include an amazing immediate deliverance event. 

   My story of what God has done for me includes these scenes:

1. I grew up in a home where an angry agnostic dad was always in conflict with a quiet Christian mom. The stage was set for me to test everything I heard to know the truth. 

2. At seven years old I looked up from my front yard in Sandspit, BC, and knew God was watching me. It was a good feeling.

3. At twelve years old I heard a gospel presentation at the end of a boy’s Sunday School class that triggered a clear response of faith. Without telling anyone, I inwardly asked Jesus to please be my Lord and Savior because I wanted to experience what he had done for me on the cross.

4. After struggling for a couple of years always feeling like I needed to receive Jesus again because I was still such a sinner (my dad made sure I knew this was what I should think of myself) I went forward at a Barry Moore Crusade in Abbotsford BC (early 70’s) to affirm that I “got it”. Jesus died once for all, and I only had to receive him once for all. 

5. Soon after this I knew I was to declare Jesus as my Lord and Savior through baptism. However, after the pastor had visited to talk with me and my sisters about it, I was again traumatized by such a tirade about what a horrible specimen of a Christian I was that I caved and failed to honor Jesus. 

6. When I was around 18, I had grown stronger in my faith and knew that it was time to confess Jesus as my Lord through baptism no matter what anyone else thought of it, and so I did. I was not aware of any celebration of the event, only that I was obeying my Savior in faith, and that was all that mattered. 

7. From there, I could go on about the ways God was leading me to get to know him better through Bible college, my early years of marriage, moving to Merritt to pastor a Baptist church, and how he used Larry Crabb, Henry Blackaby, and Neil Anderson, to give me the life purpose, “Leading people to freedom in Christ so they can experience God in a real and personal way.”  

   What God did this morning was assure me that he only required me to tell my own story of what he has done for me, not someone else’s. And one of the delightful things is that he used a demonized man whose story was totally different from mine to encourage me to tell my story today that is totally different from his. 

   I simply trust that my place in God’s work is to tell of things that some people need to hear today. And if you are one of those people, what is your story of what God is doing for you right now, and how are you joining him in that work?

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Faith is Built on Our Lack of Faith

   One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they set out, and as they sailed he fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water and were in danger. And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?” (Luke 8:22-25)

   The connection between the Beatitudes and our lack of faith is HUGE!!! And Jesus taking his disciples through a storm in their boat was a prime illustration of how God builds up our faith by exposing our unbelief.

   What I call “the Beatitudinal Valley”, or “the Beatitudinal Journey”, is my summary of the eight Beatitudes Jesus presented to introduce what we call his “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5:1-12). Here’s what they look like in a boatload of disciples going through a storm with Jesus.

   The first Beatitude in this valley is a step down into “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” It should be noted that this is the first thing we will see God doing when he is blessing someone, he leads them to know their poverty of spirit. 

   In this case, we can see how Jesus was blessing his disciples by letting them see the true condition of their faith. This was likely in preparation for what they would be required to do not long after this, and it may have been a way to keep the men humble about their distinctive place in his ministry. 

   As the blessing of our poor-in-spiritness settles into our souls, it leads to the blessing of “Blessed are those who mourn…” Contrary to the prideful heart that wants to fix whatever poverty of spirit it sees, the blessing of God leads us deeper into some honest mourning about our condition. 

   In other words, while today’s trend with children is to try and keep them from feeling anything bad about themselves, God blesses us by leading us to sincerely mourn things in our lives that are not like him. And there is something about us lacking faith that makes us quite different than Jesus. 

   The blessing of mourning whatever is wrong with us leads deeper into a state of “Blessed are the meek…” This is where we know there is no way we can fix whatever poor-in-spirit area of our lives we are looking at, and so, instead of trying to do better, we turn to Jesus in surrender to his shepherdly authority to lead us into his Father’s will. 

   And as we surrender to Jesus to help us, we find ourselves in the blessedness of “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…” because we find ourselves now longing for the very thing we don’t have. In this case, Jesus is using his disciples to point out any ways we lack faith, and showing how he uses storms to expose such things helps us look at what is happening in our lives to see if he is doing something similar. 

   The upside of the Beatitudinal Valley leads into “Blessed are the merciful… the pure in heart… the peacemakers… those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,” but the primary focus of the disciples in the storm is how Jesus was blessing them on the downside of the Beatitudinal Valley to humble them in the area of their lives that mattered the most, their faith. 

   I hope this encourages you to be honest about your soul-condition, particularly in how you feel God would address your faith (or lack of faith). I believe the Beatitudes show us how the only way we can grow in our faith is by agreeing with Jesus when he asks us where our faith was when we didn’t trust him with something. 

   And the disciples' request of, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5) is a very good example of how we will grow in faith once we admit we need to do so. 

   To encourage us to admit we have weak faith, don’t forget how Paul instructed the church, “As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions” (Romans 14:1). This shows that people who are weak in faith should feel as welcome in the church as anyone else, but with the guidance that focuses on how to grow in faith, not how to win quarrels (there is a big lesson in that about the people in our churches who love to quarrel and what it says about their faith!). 

   And here’s a word from Jude who was an earthly brother to Jesus but had to come to faith in Jesus as his Lord and Savior. He exhorts us, 

“But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt…” (Jude 1:20-22).  

   That shows us that we must strive to build up our assemblies of believers in our faith while being merciful to those who doubt because we know how much mercy we received to give us whatever faith we have attained. And if we are the ones who struggle with doubt, Jesus’ church should be the safest and most loving place to admit it, and to be built up by those whose faith is stronger than ours. And that should be true no matter what storms of impossible situations we go through.

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: The Good News of Jesus’ Kingdom

   Soon afterward he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means. (Luke 8:1-3)

   The difference between “the gospel” and “the good news of the kingdom of God” is huge. 

    To clarify, what we call “the gospel” means “the good news”. For me, it is sad that someone invented the word “the gospel” to replace “the good news” because “the good news” gives a distinctive statement about the reality of the kingdom of God that people don’t know is there when they only hear “the gospel”. I much prefer the way God said it, that what Jesus came to give is the “good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11). Can you see how we downplay what God said in his own words by replacing “good news” with “gospel”?! 

   However, the main focus of what I want to clarify is simply that whether we think of it in the familiar English term “the gospel”, or more accurately in the biblical terminology of “good news”, the point is that it is about “the kingdom of God”. This is synonymous with “the kingdom of heaven” (used 32 times in Matthew’s account), and with the later clarification that it is “the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13-14), meaning, Jesus kingdom! 

   My point is that too many church people do not know that receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is not a one-on-one relationship. It is a “kingdom of God” relationship. We cannot receive Jesus Christ without entering his kingdom. He came into the world, not to live with us in the world, but to invite us and call us and save us into his kingdom. There is no other version of Christianity. To view receiving Christ as a personal decision that only involves us and Jesus is not what the Bible means by receiving Christ.

   I believe that the incomplete gospel of North America has led to so many of the problems in people living out their places in the body of Christ. By leaving “of the kingdom” out of the gospel, people have received a customized relationship with God that can’t be found in Scripture. But the result is people thinking that doing anything in the church, or in the body of Christ, or in the kingdom of God (if they even hear of the term), is like an optional kind of Christian living for those who want something more for themselves. 

   The truth is that the gospel is the good news of the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. The good news is that we are no longer stuck living at the mercy of corrupt earthly governments. In every nation of the world, what is true of everyone who receives the good news of great joy is that God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). 

   Do you see that connection between being delivered out of the domain of darkness that is in every nation of the world and transferred into Jesus’ kingdom where we experience him giving us redemption, the forgiveness of our sins? God has done this replacement work by taking us out of one place and bringing us into another, and that connection to Jesus as our redeemer, the one who secures the forgiveness of our sins, only happens in Jesus’ kingdom.

   The necessity of declaring our faith in Jesus Christ through baptism is supposed to be like our initiation into the kingdom of God. It is not secondary. It is not optional. It is the way people professed faith in Jesus Christ from the very first day of the church being filled with the Spirit. If they believed (and they weren’t in the process of dying before they could be baptized), they repented and were baptized. No living person in the New Testament was ever considered a Christian if they were not baptized. 

   There is so much more to say about this, but I think the real issue is the personal side of it, whether people who have received just the North American gospel (that receiving Jesus is a just-Jesus-and-me experience) are willing to take another look at Jesus and the apostles proclaiming “the good news of the kingdom”. It is what Jesus heralded from the beginning, and if we have not yet seen the good news as it relates to Jesus’ kingdom, it is imperative that we examine ourselves to see if we are truly in the faith since the faith is only found in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: The Love of a Forgiven Soul

   “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” (Luke 7:41-50)

   Because I believed in God from a young age, it tended to help me be a good kid. When that was combined with angry abuse that always told me I never did anything right, it nurtured a fear of admitting to doing anything wrong because the response would be more of the same.

   All that to say it has been quite a journey for me to attach to God in repentance so I could honestly say I was experiencing his love for me, his forgiveness of my sins, and his grace abounding to me no matter how many sins I had to confess. 

   Along the way, two words from the Bible have stood out. First, it was the Greek word for love, “agapè”. This is the word used for God’s love. When God calls us to love with agapè-love, he means to love others the way we have been loved by him. This might give insight into any difficulties we have loving others (even our enemies) when we realize that our expressions of loving others come from our experiences of God loving us!

   As the beloved disciple John wrote, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:10). We must begin here, that our love begins in God’s love. This also means that our personal experience of that love conditions our personal expressions of love. In other words, if we struggle to love, let’s get help attaching to God’s love!

   The second word that stands out in this is the Hebrew word for love, “hesed”. It is found throughout the Old Testament in English expressions like “steadfast love”, “unfailing love” and the like. It reveals what is called the “covenantal” love of God, the love that saturated God’s covenant relationship with his people. 

   And just in case anyone has ever told you that the Old Testament God was not as loving as the New Testament God, I assure you that they have never attached to this “hesed” love of God that is all through those Old Testament Scriptures!

   It is no accident that we have in Scripture this beautiful and convicting account of a “sinful” woman showing up her self-righteous critic. It continues to expose our hearts as we must ask ourselves how a sinful woman knew enough about Jesus before anyone knew of what he would do on the cross that she would have such assurance of forgiveness and such experience of his love that she would unabashedly love him in the “spirit and truth” worship God desires for us. 

   Some of us likely need to admit we do not know God’s love like that because we have never admitted the greatness of our debt of sin. Others may see that we have a judgmental problem where we judge others as more sinful than ourselves because we can’t admit how sinful we are. It may be that this is where we will get to know God’s love for us as we confess our sins and receive his forgiveness.

   Whatever the case, there was healing for me in this as I see why church folk can be so unloving, and conviction to keep short accounts with God about my failures to love because of my failures to repent. Whatever God is doing to change my mind about things, I want to fully join him in his work so that my experience of his love fuels my expressions of love to him and everyone else in my life today. 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

On This Day: When Hypocrites Don’t Know God’s Word

   One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table. And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” (Luke 7:36-39)

   My first thought about this passage was to thank our Father in heaven for making his word real to his children. While skeptics mock it and reject it, God opens the eyes of the blind so we can see what he has written. He opens the ears of the deaf so we can hear “what the Spirit is saying to the churches”. 

   And so it stood out that Luke’s “orderly account” brought out the contrast between the way Jesus constantly used God’s word (Scripture) to teach and affirm what he was doing, while the religious elite judged him by their own personal notions and presuppositions. 

   Because this Pharisee, Simon, was convinced that the Messiah would never have let a “sinful” woman touch him the way he and his guests had all witnessed, and because the Pharisees were the religious teachers of the people, it is very telling that Simon judged Jesus based on personal preferences rather than the Scriptures!

   This made me explore again what the Scriptures of Simon’s day (what we now call the Old Testament) said that would have made perfect sense of what was happening with Jesus and the sinful woman. 

   The passage in Isaiah 53 is very clear about the Messiah’s association with sinners. It is sadly fascinating that the Jews of our day are just as ignorant of that chapter of the Bible as Simon was 2,000 years earlier! 

   In fact, in videos I have watched of Jewish believers in Jesus sharing the gospel with the Jewish people, when they read from Isaiah 53, most Jewish people think that is from the New Testament because they realize right away that it sounds like Jesus! They are shocked to find that it is their Bible (called “the Tanakh”) that described what the Messiah would do. They are then bewildered by the realization that they knew it was talking about Jesus!(1) 

   When we consider how the prophets spoke of a Savior who would so associate with our sins as to bear them on himself, and then consider what God says about being close to the “broken and contrite in heart” (Psalm 51:17), it should be no surprise that Jesus who was “God with us” would let a sinful woman touch him in worship because she had experienced the forgiveness of her sins. 

   One of my favorite expressions of God’s association with sinners in the Old Testament (Tanakh) is God’s own testimony about himself, 

   For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15).

Just as much as God “dwells” in the high and holy place of heaven, he “also” dwells with sinners who are “contrite and lowly in spirit”. The Pharisees should have recognized that Jesus was showing us what this looks like in person! 

   I will conclude with one more Scripture that shows what this Savior would look like when he came into the world to save sinners.

He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
    he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
    and gently lead those that are with young. 
(Isaiah 40:11)

I am quite sure that Jesus did not see a “sinful woman” worshiping him that day. He saw a sheep who was responding to the Shepherd who found her. He saw a lamb feeling that he had already gathered her into his arms and carried her close to his heart. 

   She, in fact, knew what the Messiah would be like better than a Pharisee whose hard heart saw nothing good at all. And I would rather be thought of as a sinner who has no right to be amongst the religious elites than a religious hypocrite who doesn’t even know what God’s word says about our Savior coming into the world to save sinners.

(1) Here is a link to the “So Be It!” YouTube page that has many videos showing Jewish believers in Jesus (Messianic Jews) sharing the gospel with fellow Jews. https://www.youtube.com/c/SoBeIt32ad#:~:text=Welcome%20to%20SO%20BE%20IT%21%2C%20a%20video%20project,conversations%20about%20Jewish%20life%20with%20faith%20in%20Jesus.  

 

© 2025 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com 

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)