Do you have an awareness of your guilt and shame for your sin? If so, love and adoration for the One who forgives you and cleanses you should come easily.  

However, if you mistakenly think that there is little sin in your life and that you are a pretty good person, you will sit back smugly as a Pharisee and mock those who come to the Lord in genuine, loving worship. When you live in awe of God’s grace, loving Christ comes easily. When you are convinced (from today’s verse) that you deserve nothing, you will fall on your face and worship Him.

Loving and adoring Jesus is not a duty; it is a response to His grace for our guilt. Grace has always been the great motivator of Christianity. Grace enables us to forgive those who have abused us.  

Grace enables us to hang in there during a tough time of marriage. Grace enables some believers to leave lucrative positions to serve God in some obscure part of the world. Believe me, nobody gives his life out of a sense of duty. Mere commitment is not enough when the stakes are that high. Only an overwhelming sense of loving adoration can lead sinful men and women to give everything for Christ.  

Are you more like the self-righteous Pharisee or the weeping woman? Like the woman, my sins “are many.” I am the one who owed “five hundred pence.” When I reflect on God’s grace, I know that I have been “forgiven much.” I suspect you can say the same. I pray that God will break through the hardness of our hearts and cause us to lovingly adore Him.