Day Two

The Woman Who Loved Much

I have always loved the story of the woman offering her best perfume, her tears, her whole heart in worship to Jesus in that room full of Pharisees.

I am a woman who has been on both sides of the table–the one condemning and the one loving.

Luke 7:47, “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven–for she loved much.  But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” 

When I believe these words, I am thankful.

For it took me a long time (still in process) of seeing that Jesus did not forgive this woman based on what she did but it was BECAUSE she was forgiven much and dearly loved that she was compelled to worship and love Her Savior with FULL abandon.

It has become a favorite of mine to share with my children too because the example of this woman and the response of our Jesus is totally opposite of what they are bombarded with on a day to day basis.

DO, DO, DO, DO, TAKE, TAKE, TAKE, YOU’RE NOT ENOUGH.

Not only by our world’s standards, but even by their mom who is too prone to wander down the path of perfectionism and judgement of others.

But Jesus came to redeem all of that.  And I need Jesus, and I want my kids to know and depend on this man (not mom) who loves so radically and says they are enough, strong enough to stand in His love. 

We started out our devotional today with a question, “What item of yours do you think would be the greatest gift you could give someone?”  I encouraged them to think of something that would probably be SUPER hard to give away because it is so special and their favorite.  Andrew right away said “Blankie.” Eleanor said, “my books.”  So true–their absolute favs.

I transitioned into telling them that even though it would be REALLY hard to give their favorite things away…there was a woman who gave away her most prized possession to Jesus.

Read Luke 7:36-50 and Mark 14:3-9  or read “Washed with Tears” from The Jesus Storybook Bible.

When we finished, I acted out the story with each of the kids pretending they were Jesus. (They really like to be Jesus.)

I brought out all of my special smelly lotions (which I usually don’t share with the kids so they were really excited), and I massaged their feet and ankles.

I kissed their feet and pretended to cry.  Then of course they wanted to do it to me!  So you may even get a little foot massage out of this too!

After this experience we just sat and talked about WHY this woman would do something like this? LOVE!

“Why did this woman love Jesus?”  This is where I helped my kids to think of a time where they had disobeyed Mommy or Daddy and got in trouble for it.  We talked about how good it felt to be forgiven, to get a hug from Mommy or Daddy, and an “I love you.”

When we are forgiven, it moves us to love the giver of that forgiveness.  We are so thankful.

This is a great opportunity to jump into a converstion about SIN, and how we all are sinners.

It’s important to help our kids see their need for forgiveness.

This seems a long, hard road for me because I have kids who seem to think they do nothing wrong!!  But I just keep praying and talking with them about it.  None of us can appreciate the complete forgiveness that comes through Jesus unless we understand the depth of our sin.  The woman in Bethany understood that, and I keep praying my kids will too.

By the time we finished up, the smell of the lotion was lingering…an ever present reminder of God’s forgiveness and this woman’s act of worship.

A natural response to forgiveness is overflowing love.  When we have the Holy Spirit in our hearts because we have trusted Jesus to forgive our sins, we can’t help but love others too!

“Give thanks to God! He always leads us in the winners’ parade because we belong to Christ. Through us, God spreads the knowledge of Christ everywhere like perfume.”     2 Corinthians 2:14

A wonderful application to this devotional, would be to serve others.  Here are some ideas.

Some great songs to sing along with this devotional are:  “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” by Nichole Nordemann and “In Christ Alone” by Keith and Kristyn Getty.

If you want to know more about our Easter cross and our “heart” ornament, read HERE to see how we did it.  We used red tissue paper for the heart, and spritzed it with some sweet smelling perfume!

{You can also PRINT this devotional, plus others for this month right NOW!  Easter Project Devotionals}