Better to be right in your heart and love the Lord.
He (Jesus) replied, “Isaiah was RIGHT when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “These people honour me with their lips (lip service) but THEIR HEARTS are far from me. THEY WORSHIP ME IN VAIN; their teachings are about rules taught by men”. Isaiah 29:13, Mark 7:6, 7
Lip service; insincerity, saying something but not really meaning it.
Luke 7:36-50, tells of Jesus’ visit to the house of Simon the Pharisee for a meal. Straight away, V37, a woman enters the scene. It’s interesting the NIV states, ‘when a woman who had ‘LIVED A SINFUL LIFE’. This version DOESN’T call her a ‘sinful woman’ and neither did Jesus at the end of the Biblical account. We have all sinned, but God sees us in Christ.
Jesus allowed the woman to weep over His feet, dry them with her hair and pour perfume on them ( actions of deep contrition). There’s no record of her saying anything, nor of Simon criticising anything she said (sometimes sorrow can be too deep to express in words).
Alas, Simon the host, did judge the woman and the Lord Jesus in his thoughts. He judged her character and Jesus’ own discernment and righteousness for allowing her near Him.
Jesus, then told Simon a parable about a money-lender owed money by two different men, neither of whom could pay their debt. They were both forgiven, but which was forgiven more – the one who owed more. Jesus then compared Simon’s hospitality, no water to wash His feet with that of the weeping woman.
Regarding the woman Jesus said, ‘her many sins (again NOT A SINFUL WOMAN) have been forgiven, for she LOVED MUCH’.
Jesus’ final words to Simon were, ‘he who has been forgiven little loves little’.
He spoke twice directly to this humiliated woman, ‘your sins are forgiven’. ‘Your faith has saved you, go in peace’.
The Lord looked on the sorrowful woman’s heart and ‘forgave her many sins’. The self righteous Pharisee didn’t receive the same blessing.
May God give us humble and honest hearts today as we come before Him.
God bless and keep you.