““Look at this woman kneeling here. When I entered your home, you didn’t offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair…. I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven..””
— Luke 7:44-47 (NLT)
The customs of the time dictated that as a woman, she could not dare kiss Jesus on the face as Simon should have done, but she could kiss his feet. The truth however is that Jesus had been walking around all day and his feet were no doubt dirty, smelly and sticky! (Blurgh!) The woman had come to anoint feet that were already clean (as was custom) and here she found herself facing the dirt. But she wasn’t going to let the dirt stop her from anointing the feet of this man that she loved!
4.
Don’t let the dirt stop you from worshipping the God you love
As I read this part of the passage, what leapt out to me was that the woman was washing Jesus’ feet of the dirt that was on him, but Jesus is the one who washed her of the dirt that was on her life as a result of her sin! Wow – mind blown moment right there! The dirt that was on Jesus’ feet was a barrier to the anointing of the perfume. The woman first had to clean his feet before she was able to anoint them.
A barrier to our worship can sometimes be the sin that still hangs over us, whether that be because we have never accepted the free gift that is Jesus and become a Christian (Jesus follower), or because of un-resolved sin that we have yet to offer up to God. In Psalm 24, we are told that only those who hands are clean and hearts are pure may stand in God’s holy place.
I will deal with the second scenario first, although we touched on this in Part 1 – The Approach. There is nothing that we can do to cleanse our own hands or purify our own hearts of the dirt that is sin. Only the price that Jesus paid at the cross can do that. But, even though we are forgiven from the ultimate price of our past, present and future sin through Jesus at the very moment that we give our lives to him, sin is still sticky.
As Paul explains in Romans 6, just because Grace has set us free from the law, it doesn’t mean that we no longer sin.
Even once we have become a Jesus follower, our old nature will still be present and we can still find ourselves falling back into old patterns of sin. Old desires and wants do not always disappear the instant we give our lives to Christ. It is a transformational process from the old self into the new self (see “The Process of Becoming; how God is unveiling our true selves”).
An important part of worship is choosing again to obey God in all areas of our lives, even those parts where we may have turned away from him and asking God to forgive us and free us of those sins.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” — Romans 12:2 ESV
We need to continually come back to God every day and ask for forgiveness in those areas where we have messed up. And his mercy is new for us every single day (Lamentations 3:22-23). Because he knows that we are going to need it every single day!
There is no condemnation in Christ, only forgiveness, mercy and love. But often unresolved and unconfessed sin can remain in our hearts, serving as a barrier to true freedom in worship. For us to approach God with clean hands and a pure heart we must first ask for forgiveness through the blood of Christ, becoming righteous in his sight.
For those who have never accepted the free gift that is Jesus and become a Christian (Jesus follower), if you would like to, the answer is simple. The gospel, literally meaning Good News, can be explained in 4 stages:
- You were created by God and he loves you enormously
- God is perfect, but we have all sinned and fall short of His perfect standards, the result of which is being eternally separated from God (Hell)
- God sent Jesus, His son, the only one ever able to live a perfect life, to Earth so that he could die in our place, so that our relationship with God could be restored.
- All we have to do is accept this truth in our hearts and confess that Jesus is Lord, and we can know God
(More information and a greater description of this can be found in my previous blog LIFE: Christianity – What is it all about?)
Becoming a Christian is the best decision I ever made. And every time I come to worship God I am reminded of the power in that decision, that there is now no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because I belong to him, I am free from the power of sin and death.
Just as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples of the dirt that was on them (John 13:5), come to Jesus and ask him to cleanse you of the dirt that is on your life. Don’t let the dirt that is sin stop you from worshipping the God that you love. Come to him for forgiveness and freedom from that sin, in order that you may experience the anointing fragrance of grace through a life lived in extravagant worship!
Thank you God that You came down to Earth and died on a cross for my sin
Please forgive me for my sins, the times I have done things my own way, without you.
Help me to always live a life of worship, in submission to your will and free from the sin that separates me from you.
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