Daily pearls from the shore🫧 The LIKERT SCALE In my professional experience, I have come across a lot of survey, performance, and assessment forms that would need people to express the intensity of a certain emotion or opinion with numbers on a scale. For example, a Likert scale of 1 to 10: do you agree to disagree. “Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little, loves little.” (Luke 7:47) This expression is in the context of a certain woman who had a sinful past, washing Jesus’s feet and kissing them, expressing her daring and devotion in the then most culturally unfit manner. Jesus then honours her act as an expression of love as thankfulness for her forgiven sins, which were many. As much as the text emphasizes the magnitude of this woman’s love towards the Lord, it points directly to the fact that it was in return to the love the Lord expressed towards her first, in forgiveness, as John puts it in 1 John 4:19, “We love because He first loved us.” In Luke 7:41-43, Jesus told this story: “A man loaned money to two people—500 pieces of silver to one and 50 pieces to the other. But neither of them could repay him, so he kindly forgave them both, cancelling their debts. Who do you suppose loved him more after that?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” “That’s right,” Jesus said. Hence, the love of the woman was more. Next, He goes on to mention how the love of some for Him was less because of “apparently less sins” forgiven. Amazing how in one context, the character of GOD and humans displays in measures. Here, God is not stingy in forgiving less for some and forgiving more for others. He forgives freely and all, as much as we bring to Him. The context points the fingers back at us. We bargain, we sugarcoat, or we present ourselves more as holy and lesser of sinners. We rob ourselves of receiving the great love, by acting like less of a sinner. There is no Likert scale in God’s assessment tools to quantify sin. No one is less a sinner or more. In Matthew 5: 21-22, a man who murders and a man who calls names to his brother are equal sinners and due for the same magnitude of punishment. It’s on us. Either we can take the attitude of Paul as in 1 Timothy 1:14-16, where he mentions himself as the worst of all sinners being a persecutor of believers earlier, and how he ended up receiving the mercy of the same level of forgiveness from Jesus. Or we can choose to be like a Pharisee who boasts in his self-righteousness or in being a “less of a sinner”. (Luke 18: 9-14) For God displayed His love in forgiveness of many sins through Jesus when He wide-opened His arms and prayed for the forgiveness of the very people who were crucifying him. (Luke 23: 34) Ephesians 3: 17-18 says, “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, Let’s bring our debts in full and receive forgiveness for much and love Him much for He forgives freely, and He loves freely. What is it in your life that is holding you back from experiencing full forgiveness and love? Allow us to help you let it release and let you receive. Contact: Voice Of The One Calling: WhatsApp @ +918437213863 For more: click the link https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBa08gDjiOe8m6dap1s