FORGIVENESS and JUDGING

WHAT WOULD JESUS DO?

This is a very good question.  It should precede all of our everyday actions as well as  those of monumental proportion. 

We have been shown in the New Testament what Christ intended in the case of judging the actions of other people.  It is not mans’ place to judge other men in the spiritual sense of things.  “Judge not lest ye be judged” and “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” are His words meant for us to live by. 

Leopards can change their spots, but not on their own.  God is our creator and He does have the power to do all things.  God the Father could not only change the leopard’s spots but if he chose to do so, He could change this carnivore into a confirmed vegetarian.  Our responsibility toward the sinner is not to abhor the person but rather the activity.  We have a further responsibility for forgiveness and prayer directed to the healing of the afflicted party through God, not through our judgments.  It might also be added that we are to do this in our own silence not in the clamor of gossip.  No one on this earth could cast even the smallest pebble based on the words of Christ.  JOHN 8:1-11

As you are busy casting the stones of unforgiveness, gossip and self-righteousness, the Lord is busy writing your name and your sins in the sands of time. Christ was aware of the woman’s sins.  That is a fact that cannot be questioned.  Christ was also aware of the sinful nature of mankind, and of the individual sins of each of those in that crowd.  Christ did not ask them to turn a blind eye to the sins of the woman.  He did advise through His actions and words their time would be better spent in self-admonishment and correcting their own weaknesses.  Christ Himself did not condemn the woman.  He did offer her forgiveness and direction to “go and sin no more”. JOHN 8:11

We have the opportunity on a daily basis to use the lessons taught through the Gospels.  Christ’s words are as meaningful today as when first spoken.  There is not one action that cannot be discerned by His words and the example shown in His life.  The Gift of His existence here on earth is God’s way of giving evidence that love and forgiveness are very high on His list of attributes.

Nothing made God give us a redeemer. A lamb to sacrifice for mans’ cleansing, forgiveness, and total retribution for our sins.  Nothing made Him show us the extent He would endure through His Son’s anguish to make things right between mankind and their God.  When you stop and think about Christ’s pain being correlated to the sins of mankind for all time, it is truly unimaginable. 

Nothing outside His nature made Him show us His ability to forgive. He shows us through Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension that He has the power to raise man from the depth and death caused by sin.  Even in our weakness as mere man, we might live again as Christ did.  Christ’s return from three days in the depths of Hell. His appearances to the Apostles and His eventual Ascension into Heaven are all there to show the power that God possesses over death, in both the spiritual and the physical world.  The fact that all this was done for mankind even in the face of our sinful and rebellious nature speaks to the ultimate act of forgiveness.  Nothing made God do any of this except His own nature, that of a loving, compassionate and forgiving being.  We as reborn Christians are instructed by Christ to emulate these very attributes.