‘Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”’ John 8:1-11(NLT)
When somebody is deeply embarrassed, ashamed or humiliated we have the choice to join the mockers and make the person’s life more miserable or stand with the troubled soul to offer our support.
We have the choice to join the stone throwers and throw stones or discourage stone throwers from throwing stones. We have the choice to judge or leave the judgment to God the righteous judge.
Either way, we have a choice just like Jesus in John 8, where a woman caught in adultery was brought before him. Jesus refused to throw a stone, He refused to mock the woman, He refused to judge her. The first priority for Jesus is to save anyone who meets Him including you.
Jesus will never turn His back on an opportunity to save a soul and that is who He is. We all know in a moment life can change from good to very unpleasant. The woman caught in adultery had enjoyed herself and in the next moment faced stone throwing executioners. But here enters Jesus the savior, “Anyone without sin cast the first stone.”(John 8:7) When she scared for her life and didn’t have hope to live, the encounter with Jesus later brought about a life fulfilled and her name in the annals of history.
The nineteenth-century British preacher C. H. Spurgeon said, “God’s mercy is so great that you may sooner drain the sea of its water, or deprive the sun of its light, or make space too narrow, than diminish the great mercy of God.” Jesus has paid the debt for us with His own self and has set us free from eminent death. Barabbas, in Matthew, chapter 27, was a notorious prisoner condemned to death but chosen by the crowd over Jesus to be released by Pontius Pilate in a customary pardon before the feast of Passover. Barabbas deserved the death sentence, but he did not die for his punishment because he met Jesus at the right time.
We were all like Barabbas: ready to be executed until God’s grace and mercy found us. I will encourage you today to make meeting with Jesus your mindset and watch Him change your circumstance.
from When You Meet Jesus Richard Owusu Bediako