Enjoy This Reading from “A Dog and A Clock.”
From God’s Word, the Bible…
“Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.”
Then He said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
And those who sat at the table with Him began to say to themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”
Then He said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
From Luke 7:36-50
Tell Me What You Think You Owe…
Tell me what you think you owe the Lord, and I will tell you how much you feel like serving Him. If you think you owe a great deal, you will gladly serve and worship Him. If you think you owe very little, you will not be much interested in service or worship.
The truth of the matter is every Christian owes the Lord the same amount. He has done no less for one than He has for others. We all come into this world in a very sad and sorrowful condition. We come in with a sinful nature that causes us to be alienated or separated from God.
The piercing question is this: How can sinful human beings ever hope to enjoy fellowship with the perfectly holy God? To put it another way, how can guilty sinners ever stand acceptably in the presence of the holy God?
The answer is that sin must be taken out of the way, and there is only one way that sin can be removed from between God and us. Its penalty has to be paid! What is the penalty for sin? It is eternal separation from God or the eternal wrath of God!
There are only two ways for the penalty for our sins to be paid: we either have to pay it ourselves, which means we must be separated from God and heaven forever, or someone has to pay it on our behalf. In order for someone else to pay the penalty for our sins, such a person must, of course, be free from sin. We see the logic of this. If someone has sins of his own, he would have to pay the penalty for those and could not, therefore, pay the penalty for anyone else.
Jesus is the only person who ever lived without sin (John 1:14; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 John 3:5). Because He had no sins of His own, He could pay for the sins of others.
This is what His death on the cross is all about. There He received the wrath of God in the place of sinners. Because He was God in human flesh, He could receive in a finite length of time an infinite measure of wrath. This is the reason He cried out from the cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).
The cost of sin is God-forsakenness in hell, and, on that cross, Jesus endured God-forsakenness for sinners. All who realize the depth and guilt of their sins and entrust themselves fully to Jesus in the work He did on the cross are released from the sentence of God’s wrath (John 3:16,36; Rom. 5:8-9;1 Thess. 1:10; 1 Peter 2:24).
What do Christians owe the Lord? A debt that can never be paid! We have been delivered from the wrath of God and given eternal life through Christ. In referring to a debt we owe, I am not suggesting that we must work for our salvation. Not for a moment! The Apostle Paul says: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9).
We do not work for our salvation but from our salvation. Because we have been saved by the redeeming death of the Lord Jesus, we work to show our love and gratitude to Him.
It is not easy to show gratitude to the Lord by worshiping and serving Him. There are always a thousand things to occupy us. Some people excuse themselves from worship and service because they feel that they don’t have the time. Other people do so because they have been offended or hurt. Yet others do so because they don’t agree with the direction the church is going.
The answer to each of these excuses is the same: What do you owe? If you say that you owe nothing less than deliverance from the wrath of God to Christ, you must surely go on to say that He is worthy of your time and energy and that no hurt or disagreement is great enough to offset the debt.
What I have been saying is pointedly expressed in these words from Isaac Watts:
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God;
All the vain things that charm me most –
I sacrifice them to His blood.
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small:
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
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