“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.)
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