Our Daily Bread: UnshakableSample

Without Shame

Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.” -Luke 7:48

“I am that woman,” Tania said.

“Long before I knew Jesus, I filled an empty and broken life with drinking and men. I lived on the fringe of polite circles where everyone knew what kind of woman I was, some personally.” But, she said, “Jesus reached out to me, a woman like that!”

A woman, she continued, like the one who entered the home of Simon the Pharisee, when he hosted a dinner to honor Jesus (Luke 7:36). This woman who lived an immoral life (v. 37) wet the feet of Jesus with her tears and anointed them with perfume (v. 38). She did so out of her deep love for Him.

He received her gift and responded: “Your sins are forgiven” (v. 48). Not only did He release her from the burden of her shame, but He said in front of those who judged her, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (v. 50).

Like the woman so many years before her who received Jesus’ gift of peace, Tania too accepted the forgiveness of Jesus. The freedom she embraced, she remarked, gave her “the courage to stand and tell my story without shame.”

We can confess to Jesus any and everything we’ve done wrong, asking for His forgiveness. He sacrificed Himself on the cross so that we can accept the gift of being saved by faith—so that we too can “go in peace.”

Amy Boucher Pye

How has your life changed through an experience of forgiveness? How might Jesus call you into a deeper and closer relationship with Him?

Saving Jesus, thank You for the amazing gift of love when You died on the cross to save me from my sins. Help me to love You all the more.