Sometimes those who give their lives to Christ at a young age feel they have no testimony. They hear the stories of those who went from drugs, prostitution, murder or other extremes to a life in Christ and compare their “goody-two-shoe” lives and feel they have no story. We see the great love that those saved from the extremes have for their Lord and Savior- Jesus Christ. We desire that love.
You probably can recall where Jesus says “Why I say to you, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” (Luke 7:47) and we see Jesus explain how the one who is forgiven much loves much. Most of us would say that there is a difference in the forgiveness for the murderer and the one who came to Christ in his youth. I beg to differ…
I believe that if you read Luke 7 and realize that we are all the ones who owed the larger amount, you will then love like that “sinful woman” in the story. When you search the scriptures and read how we ALL are sinners, lost and without hope apart from Christ Jesus and see that there is “no one good, no even one” (Romans 3:12, Psalm 53:3), we can began to see how we are all equally sinful! We can see this throughout the word of God. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.” (Isaiah 64:6)
Once we come to the understanding of our complete inability to please God on our own, to find God without His calling, to find forgiveness without the blood of Jesus, we can then LOVE MUCH. If you struggle with feeling like others love the Lord greater than you, it may only be that they understand the depth and width of their forgiveness, not so much that they were forgiven more than you, they just “get it!”
May God reveal to you the depth of His love and forgiveness.
