It Really is Amazing Grace
It Really Is Amazing Grace
There is a question worth sitting with before you read another word: When was the last time the grace of God truly stopped you in your tracks? Not as a theological concept, not as a familiar hymn lyric, but as a living, breathing reality that left you undone?
If you have to think about it for a while, you are not alone. And that might be exactly the problem.
Two People, One Savior, Two Very Different Responses
Luke chapter 7 tells a story that cuts right to the heart of how we relate to God's grace. A Pharisee named Simon invites Jesus to dinner. He is respectable, religious, and by every outward measure, a man who has his life together. But into that carefully arranged dinner walks a woman with a reputation. The text simply calls her a sinner. She carries an alabaster flask of costly perfume, and she does something that stops the room cold. She weeps at the feet of Jesus, washes them with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints them with the perfume.
Simon watches all of this and thinks to himself that if Jesus were truly a prophet, He would know what kind of woman was touching Him. She does not belong here. She is a sinner.
And there it is. Two people in the same room with Jesus. One has invited Him in but keeps Him at arm's length. The other has crashed the party and cannot get close enough.
The question the story forces us to ask is not which one sinned. Both of them had. The real question is which one knew it.
True Worship Flows From a Heart Amazed by Mercy
The woman's extravagant display was not a performance. It was not a payment. It was evidence. Her love was the overflow of a heart that had already been touched by forgiveness. Jesus even makes this clear when He speaks to Simon, noting that her sins, which were many, have been forgiven, and that is precisely why she loves so deeply. To whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.
This is the engine of genuine worship. When we grasp the depth of our own sin and the magnitude of what it cost God to forgive it, worship becomes less of a scheduled activity and more of an unavoidable response. Romans 5:8 reminds us that God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Ephesians 2:12-13 describes what we were before Christ as people without hope, without God, far off. And then comes the turn: "But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ."
That nearness should produce something in us. It should produce the kind of worship that does not care what it looks like, the kind that brings the most costly thing we have and lays it at His feet.
The danger for those of us who have been in the faith for a long time is that we quietly get over grace. We know the vocabulary. We know the songs. We know how a service is supposed to feel. And somewhere along the way, familiarity quietly replaces wonder. We sing the words without feeling the weight of them. We go through the motions of devotion without the devotion itself.
Romans 12:1 calls us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, and Paul frames it as a reasonable response to mercy. It is logical, he says, to give everything when you understand what you have been given.
When Religion Becomes a Hiding Place
Simon's story is a warning. Luke 7 makes it clear that religious activity can hide a heart that has never truly been humbled by grace. Simon had done everything right by the standards of his day. He was a Pharisee, a keeper of the law, a man of standing. But his heart was full of pride and judgment, and he had no room for a broken woman or, it turns out, for the grace that Jesus was offering.
He judged the woman for her sin without recognizing his own. He judged Jesus for receiving her without recognizing who Jesus was. And in doing so, he exposed exactly what he lacked: a sense of his own need.
Jesus tells him a simple parable. Two men owe debts they cannot repay. One owes the equivalent of about a year and a half's wages. The other owes about a month and a half's worth. The lender forgives them both. Which one will love him more? Simon gives the obvious answer, and Jesus confirms it. Then He turns the parable into a mirror and holds it up to Simon's face.
The lesson is uncomfortable because it applies to all of us. Checking boxes is not the same as being changed. Attendance is not the same as surrender. Knowing the right answers is not the same as knowing the One who is the answer. And the watching world, the people we are trying to reach, can see the difference far more clearly than we often can.
Grace Erases What Shame Cannot
For those who have repented and placed their faith in Christ, there is a word of freedom in this passage that deserves to be heard clearly. The forgiveness the woman received was not just a moment. The verb tense in the original language carries the idea of something completed in the past that continues into the present. She was forgiven, and she remained in that condition of being forgiven.
Psalm 103:12 describes it as God removing our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. The guilt you carry from a past failure, a season of wandering, a decision you cannot undo, that guilt does not have to define your present. His grace is not a one-time transaction that leaves you to manage the emotional aftermath. It is a continuing reality.
If you are a follower of Christ who still lives under the weight of shame, the invitation today is to give it to Him again. And again after that. As many times as it takes.
And if you have never come to the place where you recognized your need and called on His name, the story of this woman is for you. She did not clean herself up before she came. She came broken, and He met her there.
That is what amazing grace does. It really is amazing.
There is a question worth sitting with before you read another word: When was the last time the grace of God truly stopped you in your tracks? Not as a theological concept, not as a familiar hymn lyric, but as a living, breathing reality that left you undone?
If you have to think about it for a while, you are not alone. And that might be exactly the problem.
Two People, One Savior, Two Very Different Responses
Luke chapter 7 tells a story that cuts right to the heart of how we relate to God's grace. A Pharisee named Simon invites Jesus to dinner. He is respectable, religious, and by every outward measure, a man who has his life together. But into that carefully arranged dinner walks a woman with a reputation. The text simply calls her a sinner. She carries an alabaster flask of costly perfume, and she does something that stops the room cold. She weeps at the feet of Jesus, washes them with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints them with the perfume.
Simon watches all of this and thinks to himself that if Jesus were truly a prophet, He would know what kind of woman was touching Him. She does not belong here. She is a sinner.
And there it is. Two people in the same room with Jesus. One has invited Him in but keeps Him at arm's length. The other has crashed the party and cannot get close enough.
The question the story forces us to ask is not which one sinned. Both of them had. The real question is which one knew it.
True Worship Flows From a Heart Amazed by Mercy
The woman's extravagant display was not a performance. It was not a payment. It was evidence. Her love was the overflow of a heart that had already been touched by forgiveness. Jesus even makes this clear when He speaks to Simon, noting that her sins, which were many, have been forgiven, and that is precisely why she loves so deeply. To whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.
This is the engine of genuine worship. When we grasp the depth of our own sin and the magnitude of what it cost God to forgive it, worship becomes less of a scheduled activity and more of an unavoidable response. Romans 5:8 reminds us that God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Ephesians 2:12-13 describes what we were before Christ as people without hope, without God, far off. And then comes the turn: "But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ."
That nearness should produce something in us. It should produce the kind of worship that does not care what it looks like, the kind that brings the most costly thing we have and lays it at His feet.
The danger for those of us who have been in the faith for a long time is that we quietly get over grace. We know the vocabulary. We know the songs. We know how a service is supposed to feel. And somewhere along the way, familiarity quietly replaces wonder. We sing the words without feeling the weight of them. We go through the motions of devotion without the devotion itself.
Romans 12:1 calls us to present our bodies as living sacrifices, and Paul frames it as a reasonable response to mercy. It is logical, he says, to give everything when you understand what you have been given.
When Religion Becomes a Hiding Place
Simon's story is a warning. Luke 7 makes it clear that religious activity can hide a heart that has never truly been humbled by grace. Simon had done everything right by the standards of his day. He was a Pharisee, a keeper of the law, a man of standing. But his heart was full of pride and judgment, and he had no room for a broken woman or, it turns out, for the grace that Jesus was offering.
He judged the woman for her sin without recognizing his own. He judged Jesus for receiving her without recognizing who Jesus was. And in doing so, he exposed exactly what he lacked: a sense of his own need.
Jesus tells him a simple parable. Two men owe debts they cannot repay. One owes the equivalent of about a year and a half's wages. The other owes about a month and a half's worth. The lender forgives them both. Which one will love him more? Simon gives the obvious answer, and Jesus confirms it. Then He turns the parable into a mirror and holds it up to Simon's face.
The lesson is uncomfortable because it applies to all of us. Checking boxes is not the same as being changed. Attendance is not the same as surrender. Knowing the right answers is not the same as knowing the One who is the answer. And the watching world, the people we are trying to reach, can see the difference far more clearly than we often can.
Grace Erases What Shame Cannot
For those who have repented and placed their faith in Christ, there is a word of freedom in this passage that deserves to be heard clearly. The forgiveness the woman received was not just a moment. The verb tense in the original language carries the idea of something completed in the past that continues into the present. She was forgiven, and she remained in that condition of being forgiven.
Psalm 103:12 describes it as God removing our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. The guilt you carry from a past failure, a season of wandering, a decision you cannot undo, that guilt does not have to define your present. His grace is not a one-time transaction that leaves you to manage the emotional aftermath. It is a continuing reality.
If you are a follower of Christ who still lives under the weight of shame, the invitation today is to give it to Him again. And again after that. As many times as it takes.
And if you have never come to the place where you recognized your need and called on His name, the story of this woman is for you. She did not clean herself up before she came. She came broken, and He met her there.
That is what amazing grace does. It really is amazing.
Recent
Archive
Categories
no categories
No Comments