Has your love for Jesus grown cold?

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve found myself emotionally disconnected during my time spent with Jesus. I read the Word, but hurried through the passage for that day. I prayed, but it felt routine. Instead of recognizing my lack of discipline and growing tendency towards self-dependence, I chalked it up to a busy season and tired eyes from a few late nights and early mornings.

That was until this past Sunday.

One of our pastors was preaching on Luke 7:36-50. This is the story of two people who encountered Jesus and had two very different responses to him. Simon the Pharisee invited Jesus into his home, but instead of honoring him, he questioned Jesus and denied him even the most basic forms of hospitality. In the midst of their conversation, a woman enters. Well-known as a sinner (likely a prostitute), this woman approached Jesus, washed his feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and anointed his feet with perfume worth an entire year’s wages.

And as our pastor compared the self-righteousness and cold indifference of Simon the Pharisee to the humble, extravagant love of the woman, I quickly became  aware of  how cold my love for Christ had grown.

Where was the passion? The overwhelming love for Christ that used to overflow into every moment?

It had been drowned out by my own self-sufficiency. I had lost sight of the weight of my sin and, as a result, my desperate need for a Savior.

When Jesus said to Simon and all who were present “…her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little,” this does not mean that your capacity to love Jesus is equal to the quantity of your sin. Any sin, no matter how small and insignificant we pretend it to be, is deserving of God’s wrath. Why? Because any sin against an infinitely valuable God is deserving of infinite punishment.

“Your love for Jesus is directly related to your estimate of how greatly you’ve sinned and how much you’ve been forgiven.” — Pastor Chris Bradshaw

With those words, I felt like my eyes were opened. The callus growing around my heart was removed. And Although it’s a prayer I had’t been praying, God answered this prayer in my life:

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” — Psalm 51:12

How wonderful is the merciful love of our Father! How amazing the grace that we could never deserve! How unfathomable the love of Christ that he would stoop down to save a sinner like me!

The fact that this realization came right before holy week makes me smile at the perfect timing of God. Tonight, I will worship with my church family as we remember the death of Christ at our Good Friday service and look forward to the hope of Resurrection Sunday!

Praise God for preparing my heart to dwell on the sorrow of the crucifixion and the joy of the resurrection. 

I pray that maybe in reading my story this week that God would use it to prepare your heart to worship him truly and deeply this weekend. And that you too may experience the joy of Christ’s salvation and the overwhelming love for him that flows from it.