Friday 29 Mar 2013

Friday Reading: John 8:3-11

Key Verse: John 8:7
7  So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Devotion:
As we begin to think about all that Christ has done for us I would like to take you on a different train of thought than Jesus being crucified; instead I want you to look at the justification of Him being our Judge. This story of the woman brought before Him who had been caught in the act of adultery is one that should speak volumes to us, not because society is so wicked or broken down but rather that we judge everyone for everything… but do we actually have the right to do that?

We assume that because we are a witness or because we have inside knowledge that we can stand as judge against a fellow human being; well that is one of the positions that God has allowed us to take up because we do have to police ourselves as a society. We may even be able to say with hand on heart that someone is guilty because we actually saw them in the act. But when it comes down to handing out the final punishment we do have to be very careful.

In this case there was an eye witness and the woman was pronounced guilty for what she had done; but Christ could see inside the hearts of the men around Him and He wanted them to stop and think about their own selves before carrying out the punishment. It’s all very well saying that someone is doing something wrong and needs to be punished for what they are doing, but when we have things in our own lives that also need attention then we should not be the ones passing judgement on them!

Jesus has every right to judge people because He has done nothing wrong; but we are as guilty as anyone else because we have also sinned before Him. We are the ones who deserve to pay the penalty for our sins but Jesus is the one who came forward and gave His own life for us on that cross. He willingly took on our sin debt just so that we would not have to take that judgment on our own shoulders…

Points to Ponder:
Do you like taking the blame for other people’s guilt?

Do you know how much Christ paid for your sins?