Extending Grace

The Adulterous Woman - Within Reach of Grace

Selections from John 8

"Teacher," they said to Him, "this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery." When they persisted in questioning Him, He stood up and said to them, "The one without sin among you should be the first to throw a stone at her." When they heard this, they left one by one. Only He was left, with the woman in the center. When Jesus stood up, He said to her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, Lord," she answered. "Neither do I condemn you," said Jesus. "Go, and from now on do not sin any more."

You'll notice that this Bible passage is often set off with brackets and footnotes. It apparently doesn't appear in the earliest, most reliable manuscripts. But it's hard to deny the lessons that it teaches. It is so descriptive of Jesus. It is so descriptive of us.

Be careful that your picture of Christ isn't cheapened by ignoring his final charge to the woman caught in adultery. Yes, his mercy is sweet, and it flows like living water into the darkest corners of our hearts cleansing and purifying, healing and restoring. But not so we can excuse our bad habits or watch TV in a better mood. His undeserved grace should motivate us to put everything out on the table, to be watchful for hidden pockets of rebellion as he reveals them to us, and to slam the door on willful sin.

Look At It This Way ...

May the conviction of God come with swift and stern rebuke upon anyone who is remembering the past of others and deliberately choosing to forget their restoration through God's grace. Certain forms of sin shock us far more than they shock God. The sin that shocks God is the thing that is highly esteemed among us self-realization, pride, the right to myself.

We have no right to have the attitude toward any man or woman as if he or she had sunk to a lower level than those of us who have never been tempted on the line they have. We have to remember that in the sight of God there are no social conventions, and that external sins are not a bit worse in his sight than the pride that hates the rule of the Holy Spirit, though the life is morally clean.

May God have mercy on any one of us who forgets this and allows spiritual pride or superiority and a sense of our own unsulliedness to put a barrier between us and those whom God has lifted from depths of sin we cannot understand. - Oswald Chambers

A Final Thought:

Are the people in your life who seem the farthest from God's grace getting any closer by the way you talk about them, act around them, pray for them? Try seeing them as God does.