The reason why I chose this weeks blog topic was that I personally needed to be reminded about God's grace.
The dictionary defines grace as the free and unmerited favor of God. In John 8: 1-11 we see a Biblical example of grace in action John 8:2-11 (NIV)
2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
11 “No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”
There are couple of things that caught my attention in these verse:
- The woman caught in adultery is NOT protesting or claiming her innocents. Maybe it is because she knows that she is guilty since she was caught in the very act.
- The woman is not protesting her punishment because she knows what the penalty for adultery is (DEATH by Stoning). Stoning is an extremely painful way to die since the person being stoned will receive 100's of painful rock blows until they eventually die from blunt trauma.
- At some point ALL of the accusers realized they had committed acts that deserved DEATH. Romans 6:23 for the wages of sin is death but the GIFT of God is eternal life.
- I personally cannot be an accuser or judge of anyone since I am 100% guilty of having committed sins.
GRACE
The woman in this story undeniable deserved death but what she received was FORGIVENESS! Is there someone or something in your life that comes to mind when reading this blog entry if so then it could be God telling you that you need to show grace to someone in your life.
I can tell you with 100% certainty that during the writing of this blog entry God brought someone to my mind that I need to show God's grace and love to this week. Who knows it may change their life as well as yours
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