Detail: Ministers Corner « Unclassified « :
Most of us can honestly say that we have received many things of which we are grateful for. Perhaps it was a birthday or Christmas present that we really wanted. Maybe it was job that we desperately needed. Maybe it was a stranger who saw we were having car trouble and came to our rescue. It might have been a debt that we couldn't pay that we were forgiven of.
Whatever the case, we likely expressed our gratitude with very sincere thank yous, maybe a card, or a small heartfelt gift. A former neighbor whose small yard adjoined mine once baked me a pan of brownies because I had mowed their small yard every time I mowed mine one summer. The brownies were delicious and it felt good to be appreciated.
But in some instances we have likely found that we could never do or say enough for someone else' act of kindness. Such was the case in Luke, chapter seven, when Jesus was invited to the home of a Pharisee named Simon. As Jesus sat at the table, a woman who was known by Simon to be a sinner, likely a prostitute came to Jesus and washed his feet with her tears. She then dried the Lord's feet with her hair. Then taking an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, she anointed His feet with this oil.
Jesus, knowing what was in Simon's heart told him a story of two men who owed sums of money to a certain creditor. One owed 500 denarii, the other 50. The creditor forgave both because neither had the money to pay him. Jesus then asked Simon, "which of them will love him more?" Simon logically stated, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more."
After Jesus had reminded Simon of all that the woman had done to show her love for Him and reminded of the social customs which Simon had failed to show the Him, Jesus then amplified Simon's own answer to the Lord's story. In Lu. 7:47, "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."
You and I owed God a debt that we could not pay. That debt was paid by Jesus, though Jesus owed nothing to us. Paul pointed to this in Rom. 5:8, "But God demonstrates His own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for the ungodly." Does your life show the kind of gratitude that the sinful woman showed Christ?