She Loved Much

The Flame

Jesus names a specific connection here, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much, worth examining directly, because it suggests genuine awareness of the depth of forgiveness received actually produces, naturally, this described depth of love, not the reverse, love earning forgiveness, but forgiveness genuinely received producing love.

This is worth applying to however much your own love for God may have grown thin specifically because your own sense of how much you have actually been forgiven has grown thin alongside it, forgetting or minimizing the genuine debt forgiven, and therefore, this verse suggests, naturally loving little as a direct result.

Notice to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little, this is not primarily about the actual, objective size of sins committed, but about awareness, how much forgiveness is genuinely recognized and received, suggesting your own love’s current temperature may be directly connected to how vividly you actually remember what has been forgiven.

Consider today reawakening genuine awareness of how much you have actually, genuinely been forgiven, not to increase shame, but because this verse insists this awareness, rightly received, naturally produces the exact love this whole book’s first movement has been describing, love flowing directly from forgiveness genuinely, vividly remembered.