Day 27: Faith- Part Two (Luke 7:36-50)
Today’s Passage: Luke 7:36-50
Jesus ends this episode by telling the woman that her faith has saved her—Jesus says her faith, not her actions.
In the reflection right before this one, I tried to honestly and briefly note the reality of a life of faith. It is full of contradictions. Confidence one moment, doubt the next.
A life of faith is also a life of love, and love is shown in deeds.
Here this life of faith can get a bit tricky. We, human beings, think we need to do something to earn God’s love. The fancy phrase is conditional love. It means you must first do something that pleases God, and then he may show you some love. That is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible unconditionally loves you. He loved us before we loved him.
There are some religious systems that even want us to prove we love Jesus by our actions. I get that actions speak louder than words. But to require human proof before we, as humans, will say God is going to love someone, well, that is us—humans—trying to control God. God does not work that way. Further, it is not a life of faith.
Isn’t that what the people at dinner were doing with Jesus? Trying to put limits on him and who he will love? They wanted Jesus to reject this person’s love for him—in essence, to reject their faith in him. They wanted this person to do all sorts of things before they would acknowledge that God would love her.
You might say to me, “David, this woman is doing an act of love. Isn’t she first demonstrating her love, thereby earning God’s love?” Great question! Let me ask another. Did Jesus love her before or after she loved him? That is the question. And the answer, the answer is given by faith—do we believe that God loves us while we were still sinners? (Romans 5:6-8).