{"id":216,"date":"2014-03-21T09:56:05","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T09:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkwood.org\/blog\/?p=216"},"modified":"2015-03-03T18:45:59","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T18:45:59","slug":"an-inconvenient-faith-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/an-inconvenient-faith-15\/","title":{"rendered":"An Inconvenient Faith (15)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery…’Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’…But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with His finger. When they kept on questioning Him, He straightened up and said to them, ‘If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’…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. Jesus straightened up and asked her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, Sir,’ she said. ‘Then neither do I condemn you,’ Jesus declared. ‘Go now and leave your life of sin.’<\/em>” (John 8:3-11)<\/p>\n

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.”<\/em> (John 3:17)<\/p>\n

As we meditate on the sacrifices of Jesus during the lenten season, we tend to focus on the physical sufferings that He endured for us.\u00a0 There is another aspect of sacrifice that isn’t as obvious but even more important.\u00a0 When a person sacrifices their rightful privileges for the good of another.\u00a0 This is clearly illustrated in the familiar story above of the woman caught in the act of adultery.\u00a0 First, bad motives or not, the Pharisees were right about the law.\u00a0 The punishment for her crime was death by stoning.\u00a0 So, by law they had the right to condemn her.\u00a0 Jesus then said, “whoever is without sin” has the right.\u00a0 They all left except the One without sin…Jesus Himself.\u00a0 So, by His own words, Jesus had the right to condemn her.\u00a0 And, as we have established earlier, Jesus was God in the flesh.\u00a0 So, by His position of Righteous Judge He had the right to condemn her.\u00a0 By law…by His holiness…by His divinity she should be condemned.<\/p>\n

But Jesus, though He had the right, sacrificed that right and did not condemn.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Jesus gave the answer to Nicodemus in John 3.\u00a0 “God so loved the world…” that He sent Me, not to condemn it but to save it.\u00a0 We love the story of this woman who experiences first hand the sacrificial mercy and grace of Jesus.<\/p>\n

Today, may I offer you this thought, what Jesus did for this sinful woman He does for you.\u00a0 We have all been caught in the act!\u00a0 We are guilty and, by all rights, we stand condemned.\u00a0 But God, though He has the right, has sacrificed that right and has chosen to save you “through” the Son according to the Scripture above.\u00a0 Therefore, today we can rejoice with the psalmist:<\/p>\n

“Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.\u00a0 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him…”<\/em> (Psalm 32:1, 2)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery…’Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?’…But Jesus … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-an-inconvenient-faith-2014-lenten-blog","category-all_posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":222,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions\/222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/parkwood.dreamhosters.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}