"Your Faith has Saved You. Go in Peace."

 

My favorite book of the Bible by a wide margin is the Gospel of John, but my favorite story in the Bible is found in chapter 7 of Luke’s gospel. In this story, Jesus is dining at the house of a Pharisee named Simon. While Jesus is reclining at the table with his host and the other guests, a woman comes in, falls down at Jesus’ feet, and begins to weep. She anoints Jesus’ head with perfume from an alabaster box, washes his feet with her tears, kisses them, anoints them with more of the perfume, and then wipes them with her hair. When Simon sees this, he thinks to himself that Jesus can’t really be a prophet, because if he were a prophet, “he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, that she is a sinner.” Given the way this is phrased, I assume the woman must have been either a prostitute or else was known for being “loose,” as my parents’ generation would say.

Jesus, being aware of what Simon is thinking, presents him with a parable concerning two men who owed money to a lender. One of them owed 50 days’ wages, while the other owed 500 days’ wages. When the men were unable to pay, the moneylender forgave them both. Jesus then asks Simon, “which of the two will love him [the moneylender] more?” Simon replies, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.”

Jesus confirms that Simon has answered correctly, and then says this to him:

“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 she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with perfume. For this reason, I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he is forgiven little loves little.”

Then Jesus said to the woman: “Your sins have been forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

There are two things I would draw your attention to here:

First, this woman was notorious in her community for being a “sinner,” someone with whom no one decent would be caught dead. In spite of this, she came to Jesus and found forgiveness. Maybe tonight you feel as though you are so filthy Christ could never stoop to love you. If so, remember this woman. Jesus had a reputation for hanging out with people who were less than respectable. In fact, his enemies called him “a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” To this, Jesus replied, “It is not the healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means, ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:12-13). In Luke 19, when he dines with a tax collector named Zacchaeus, who turns to him and promises to reform his life, Jesus comments: “Today, salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

If you’re a wretch, an outcast, despised and sick at heart, he came for you.

Second, notice that Jesus commends the woman for her faith. But how did she show faith, you might wonder. She’s not recorded as saying anything.

The woman showed her faith in coming to Jesus in humility. It was the job of common servants in those days to wash the feet of a guest, and this they would have done with water and cloth of some type; but this woman washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You can’t humble yourself much more than that. Further, she anointed Jesus with a type of expensive perfume, likely given to her by one of her “clients,” or else purchased with money she had made in her trade.

She came to Jesus because she knew who he was. As the Pharisee Nicodemus said, “We know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you are doing unless God is with him.” The woman knew that Jesus had been sent by God. Further, Jesus had forgiven sins on a number of occasions, and had been castigated for it by the Jewish leaders. Jesus was preaching a gospel of “repent and believe,” and this woman exemplified both. She regretted her past and wanted to be reconciled to God, and she knew Jesus was God’s chosen. She showed her faith by recognizing him for who he was and what he could do. On another occasion, in Matthew 9, two blind men came to Jesus, asking him to restore their sight. Jesus asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” These men believed in both who Jesus was and what he could do. The woman in Luke 7 showed the same faith.

Further, Jesus emphasized that, because he had come from God, with the authority of God, all who accepted him also accepted God:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send, receives me; and he who receives me receives him who sent me.” – John 13:20

Here’s the point of all of this: No matter what you’ve done, how dirty you feel, and how badly people may treat you because of your past, no matter how much you might want to shy away from him, Jesus came for you. If you want to be forgiven, turn to him openly, showing that you know who he is and what he can do for you. Your faith can save you, too.

“Come unto me all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” – Matthew 11:28-29

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

Because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives,

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set free those who are oppressed,

To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” – Luke 4:18-19

The Inner Rot and Torment of Unforgiveness

When an animal is killed on a highway and the body is not cleaned up or dragged off into the woods by something, as often happens on secondary roads, driving through the area can be a pretty stomach-turning experience. The process of decay isn’t pretty, and the aroma it produces isn’t exactly something they typically bottle and sell at Dillard’s. Even after the body finally decays into an unrecognizable mess and the smell dissipates, the side of the road often bears the stain of its decomposition for a long time afterward, and a lot of people avoid even looking at it.

A similar process takes place in the human heart.

Unless tended to quickly, anger and wounded emotions can ripen into bitterness, which can then fester and putrefy into hatred. Anger, bitterness, and hatred are forms of spiritual death and decay. As a deer carcass rotting on the side of the road fills the immediate area with the stench of its decomposition, these destructive emotions and attitudes can quickly permeate an entire personality, to the point where everyone around the affected person can see and feel the results, even if they don’t know the cause (ever drive through a particular area, wrinkle your nose, and say “What died here?”).

The results of emotional death and decay are equally unmistakable. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets, the more thoroughly it permeates everything around it, and the more difficult it is to clean up completely. It leaves a stain on the personality that repels even the person who carries it. Who among us would take a rotting deer carcass home, sleep in the same room with it, bathe with it, tie it onto our backs and take it with us from place to place? The very idea is vomit-inducing. A person could not do such a thing and remain sane.

It’s little wonder then that wounded people so often hate themselves, engage in self-destructive behavior, tend to destroy all of their relationships (no matter how desperately they may want to love and be loved), and hate those around them who seem to be leading normal lives. They are walking tombs; they carry death and decay inside of themselves. It has come to saturate their every emotion, every reaction, and every thought process. Often, they are obsessed with death, pain, violence, the trappings of death, the occult and supernatural, spirits, death-related imagery, and wanting to die.

It’s little wonder that in the New Testament book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul warns us: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). In other words, don’t let your anger fester; you can reach a point where it literally takes a miracle to set you free.

Yet, freedom is possible. Christ can deliver a person from anger, bitterness, and hatred, and can clean up the darkest heart, but he will not do so against our will. If you want to be free, you must determine to forgive all who have ever hurt you. The anger you feel toward those people is source of the problem, and as such it has to go, or it will just continue to poison you.

“But what they did to me was WRONG! It was TERRIBLE! I CAN'T forgive them!”

If this is your objection—and believe me, I understand it, as I’ve been deeply hurt by people myself and held on to that anger for a long time—you’re not understanding what I mean by ‘forgiveness’; what God means by it.

Forgiving a person does not mean that what they did to you was okay. It does not mean that they were right and you were wrong. It does not mean that you deserved what happened to you. It does not mean that you will forget what happened. It does not mean that you have to become their best friend or even speak to them again. It simply means that you cancel the debt they owe you. It’s just like tearing up an I.O.U. Think of what they did to you as a legal debt they owe you, like a large sum of money. Forgiving them is tearing up the bill, releasing them from your demand that they pay, that you be allowed vengeance on them. It means that you leave the question of payment, of vengeance, to God.

This is a decision, an act of the will, not a feeling, not an emotion. You may feel like killing them, and you can’t help the feeling, but what you choose to do is another matter. You can choose freedom, or you can choose to carry spiritual death and decay around in yourself until it saturates every area of your life, destroying you and those around you.

Adding to this, there are evil forces that will walk through what is essentially an open door in your life and do their best to see to it that you never get free; they will subject you to all manner of mental, emotional, and physical torment (see Matthew 18:21-36). In Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul follows his admonition to “not let the sun go down on your anger,” with: “Do not give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27). The word “place” in this verse is translated from a Greek word that means ‘a particular, reserved, or marked-off place.’ Today, we would use such a word to designate something like a reserved parking spot. In other words, the New Testament warning is that festering anger in us sets aside a place in our lives for the devil to operate in us. It would be like giving him a room in your house, or an office in your building, for him to use as he sees fit, and as the Lord Jesus himself warned us in John 10:10, the devil comes only to “steal and kill and destroy.”

Is it any wonder then that so many who carry hatred and deep emotional wounds are also involved with the occult, obsessed with death, and seem to be caught up in the midst of perpetual ruin? It’s no coincidence.

If someone hurt you, what good do you do yourself by allowing what they did to continue to hurt you, to keep you from every good thing that might otherwise enter your life—even to allow evil spiritual forces to enter and control you? You’re not hurting the person who hurt you; you’re hurting yourself, but Christ can set you free if you’re willing to take the first step and make the decision to forgive.

Further, to become permanently free, make the decision to give your life to Christ, to make him Lord. Only by the Spirit of God in your life can you successfully overcome and be healed from the wounds of the past. Why give a place, room, or office space to the devil when you can give it to God instead? This doesn’t mean that you have to run right out and join a church, give up a bunch of money to some guy on TV with a $100 haircut, or live in a cave somewhere like a monk. It simply means that you give up control of your life to Christ and trust him to work out what is best for you as you follow him. Ask him to forgive you of every sin, to give you a new life, to cleanse and heal you, to lead you in the way you should go, to help you to overcome everything that has hurt you and held you back in the past, to give you hope and a future. Jesus came and died for us, in our place, taking the wrath of God for everything we have ever done wrong or ever will, in order to give us life, to provide for our deliverance and healing. When we come to him, turning away from our old life (what the Bible calls ‘repentance’), he takes our guilt and gives us his righteousness. His resurrection from the dead was not just a good way to end a tragic story; it’s the proof that God the Father accepted what he did on our behalf and will grant life to all who come to him and obey him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” - Matthew 11:28-29

“If you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” - Romans 10:9-10

“Because I live, you will live also.” - John 14:19

Maybe you want to take this step but you’re confused and conflicted, you don’t know what to say, how to start. Here’s a model prayer that will help you, if you’re sincere:

“God, I don’t really know what to say to you. I don’t know that I’m even sure that you’re there and listening to me. I’m talking to you because I know I can’t go on like this. I’m coming to you because you say you will help me. If what the Bible says about Jesus is the truth, if he is really your Son, if he died in my place and came back to life so that I could be reconciled with you, then I give you my life right now. Take it and be my Lord. Forgive me and wipe away all of my sins. And because I ask you to forgive me, I choose, as an act of my will, to forgive all of those who have hurt me, especially...[name the people and what they did to you] and I ask you to change my heart toward them however you will. I give them over to you. I ask you to heal me inside, to deliver me from the death and rottenness that have festered in my heart, and from any and all evil spirits that I have given a place to in my life. I take back those places and give them over to you. Take full possession of every part of me. Give me your Spirit with all of the gifts he brings, fill me with your peace, and teach me how to live for you.”

Don’t let your heart, mind, and emotions become just another lonely stretch of highway where something died and was left to rot. Give it to the one who can clean up anything, who can restore you, who can fill you with life and make you a blessing to the whole world.

“He who believes in me, just as the scriptures have said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.” – John 7:38

Move On

"All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." - John 6:37 

"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust." - Psalm 103:12-14 

Sometimes believers royally mess up their lives through one fault or another, and in shame, confusion, and bewilderment they wonder if God has any mercy left for them. They approach God rather the way that a student might approach a teacher who is difficult and doesn't particularly like them, shying away from the Word and praying without confidence (like slipping a note under that teacher's door and running off rather than risking confrontation). Their walk becomes one of drudgery, overshadowed by a continual sense of condemnation and futility.

The following from 1 Samuel 12 should serve to encourage anyone who is in this condition. Don't let your failures discourage you to the point where you run away from God. He will never despise a heart that seeks Him. He's far more forgiving than we are, and He already knew the worst about you when He invited you to come and follow Him. So take heart, brothers and sisters. If you fall, no matter how much you may despise yourself, pick yourself up, go back to the Lord, take hold of the hem of his garment, and follow in His steps. :

"Samuel said to the people, 'Do not fear. You have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. You must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things which can not profit or deliver, because they are futile. For the Lord will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for Himself. Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear the Lord and serve Him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things He has done for you...'" - 1 Samuel 12:20-24