One of the great opposites of scriptural premise is the law
of recipricals.
Here’s an example of one.
Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are
forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth
little. Luke 7:47KJV
[L Therefore] I tell you that her many sins are forgiven,
·so [that is why] she showed great love. But the person who is forgiven only a
little will love only a little.” Expanded Bible (EXB) Luke 7:47
Jesus explains that a person who feels the most unworthy of
God’s grace because of how far from God’s “laws” they have lived, is likely to
love him the most when they really get a grip on the totality of their
forgivenss. But the one who has lived a
life before God, may believe he or she has less need to be forgiven. The result
is likely to be, they have no reason to know the depths of God’s love, and never
really stand in awe of God’s goodness.
Another example of this is when, in the parable of the
wayward son, (“The Prodigal Son” Luke15: 11-32), the older brother was actually
angry when his younger brother arrived home to forgiveness and a grand
party. In a discussion with his father,
he explained his hurt from following his father’s every lead, but never having been
offered the fatted calf for a celebration with his friends. In that moment, the younger son had so much
more love for his father, not because of the fatted calf, or the
celebration…but because of his father’s forgiveness and acceptance of him, that
enabled him to return to the status his older brother already had. The father explained to the older son, that
love wasn’t based on something so trivial as the fatted calf, or parties. The
older son already possessed everything the father had to give, and he wasn’t
even aware. He could probably have had a celebration with friends and the
fatted calf any time, just by asking his father. But he didn’t understand how much joy he
should have. He had little need, so he developed little love for the giver. Although his father gave him all, he never saw
the joy in having so great love from his father.
I was the older son…sort of.
I lived from my earliest childhood in a relationship with God that I
thought was as special and close as it could possibly be. Then when I began to know that without Jesus I
was no better than the most lost of the lost, I was angry with God. Until I understood the depth of sin, and the
wholeness of the remedy, I lost the sweetness of my love of God. I sort of expected the celebration for being
a good child, rather than knowing that- God wanted to give me a way to cease
from always trying to be a good child. The celebration would occur when I could
no longer rely on my own goodness, but on being saved from the struggle.
Throughout the years
of counseling people, children and adults, there have been so many times
someone delayed seeking God because of their failures to be “good.” I found myself becoming more and more certain
that it wasn’t goodness that God was seeking.
It was our hearts. God seeks our
love. As he gives it, he would like to
get it.
One of the morals of Christ’s story is that if
we are holding up something to God and saying, I am not worthy, he is busy
preparing a celebration just because we came to him to share our deepest
needs. We shouldn’t have to be in the
swells of our deepest storms and shortcomings to know the love of God and find
inner freedom, but it often is the sequence in the path we take. The oddest opposite is that when we become
aware of our shortcomings, and sins, and shy away from God’s best…we have the
most joy and discover the deepest love when we finally realize that it was the
lost he came searching for. Each one who
has been deepest in sin is the one he seemingly loves the most. Why does it seem
that way? Because he leaves the 99 sheep to go looking for the lost one. Many of Christ’s parables are to give us
reason to understand that even the farthest from his boundaries, are the ones
he longs for, seeks, loves beyond
belief, and wants to see safely home in joy.
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