All my world/All I've lost
The wrecks I've made here/The lives it cost
Your hand restores/Your word makes whole
With all my soul/ I thank you
I owe you/all my devotion
One of the most amazing things I have observed around the world is the fact that many times, the most devoted worshippers of Christ are those whose lives have been shattered and broken. Like the immoral
woman of Luke 7:36-50, they rise beyond the religious banality that characterizes their culture—to places of worship and adoration that most humans never enter.
Who was this remarkable woman? Although Luke never mentions her name, it may well has been Mary Magdalene, who had seven demons cast out of her (Luke 8:2). All we know from Luke is that she was a sinful
woman. Yet, from this nameless woman flowed an act of devotion that would forever exemplify the essence of true worship.
Jesus had been invited into the house of a Pharisee, but he was never really made at home. No one had greeted Him with a kiss or put oil on His brow. Bound by religiosity, critical spirits and hardened
pride, those who should have been His most ardent worshippers were only there to criticize and question. Like many Christians around the world today, they had been reduced to mere spectators by the deadened
condition of their own hearts.
Into this house of hypocrisy walked the most scorned woman in the village. Through the compromise of her lifestyle, she had been shorn of the protection normally given to women. Therefore she risked
everything when she walked into the midst of those who hated her most. Why would she risk so much? Could it have been that when she had looked into the eyes of Jesus earlier that day, hope had sprung afresh in her heart for the first time in years? Maybe there really was forgiveness for a woman like her.
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Before she knew it, she was on her knees. It was totally spontaneous. Who on this darkened planet could have taught her to worship by washing the feet of her Savior with her tears and drying them with her hair? Filled with the consciousness of the man in front of her, she was freed from the shackles of shame and condemnation, which had bound her for years.
Surely, even the hardened religious practitioners around her would be touched by this amazing act of devotion. Yet, complacent in their self-righteousness and ritual they remained unmoved. The words of
Jesus in response to their attitudes have continued to resound in the hearts of true worshippers for over two thousand years:
Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you her many sins have been forgiven- for she loved much. But He who has been forgiven little loves little. Then Jesus said to
her, 'Your sins are forgiven'. (Luke 7:44b – 48).
Do you see it now? How many times are you and I reduced to mere religious spectators, because of pride, a critical spirit, or some vain preoccupation with the needs and plans of our own lives? Like
the woman of Luke 7, we need to be touched afresh with the reality of the great salvation Jesus has brought to our lives. This revelation is critical, because gratefulness is the very substance that fuels the
fires of devotion in the human heart. Fueled by these fires, may all of us rise to new levels of adoration and worship, never forgetting that you and I owe Him all of our devotion.
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