Monday 11 Jun 2018

June 11: John 8:1-11

Key Verse: John 8:11
“No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Devotion:
Double standard? What’s wrong with double standards? Personally, I think our biggest problem with our double standards is the way we then treat others because of those standards. We like to think the law is laid out specifically and that all should follow it; but when we get caught out transgressing that same law we want it to bend to give us leniency. The sad fact is when we see someone else breaking those same laws, we tend to blame them square and fair for what they have done.

Right from the beginning God has told us we do not have the right to judge one another because of this very fact. We break the laws, so we should not be the ones who judge others for breaking those laws. However, if nobody upheld the laws, we would all be in great trouble because we would have chaos in everything. We therefore have to follow the standards as laid down by God in the beginning. The basic law which He gave to Moses still stands today. The reason for it is not to throw everyone in jail that breaks the law, but for us to see we are breaking the law and encourage us to stop breaking it. If there were no punishments for breaking the law, we would simply go out and break them. But because there are punishments, we shy away from getting caught breaking the law. When the law does not punish people properly, they go back and break the same laws time and time again.

One thing we always forget… God is watching us break every law every time. There is nothing that can be hidden from Him because He can see it all. There is no sin that can be hidden from Him; but there is no sin which He has done. That fact alone gives Him the right to judge us righteously. If we want someone to be able to show us when we go wrong, the only one who can do that justly is Christ. This does not mean we should ignore people who are breaking the law because they may not know they are breaking the law or we have done it before... If they are able to see they have broken God’s law, God will be the one to judge them accordingly, but they do need to know it in the first place. Thank goodness we have a loving God who is willing to forgive us when we admit to our faults!

Points to Ponder:
Do you like people saying when you have done wrong?

Can you stand up to God and say you have done nothing wrong?