We Are Not Our Sins

But when they continued asking him, he straightened up and said to them, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." - John 8:7

It's very easy to set people apart because of sins you know they've committed. We could hear someone is a thief, liar, adulterer and immediately cast them aside as someone we don't want to associate with. That's what happened in John 8, when the people of Jesus' time wanted to stone a woman guilty of adultery. They saw the sin and Jesus saw the human being.

God wants us to hate the sin, not the person. At this moment, both you and I can be labeled a lot of ugly things due to the nature of the sins we've committed, but we know those sins don't make us who we are. The truth is that a lot of issues I deal with make me sin, and those issues only God knows, and that's why He will always have mercy on me. It would be wrong for me to look at someone else and think, "oh, they're so messed because they're always gossiping about others," and then brush them off. That person is still a child of God who sins like we all do. Just as we hope God overlooks our own offenses and treats us according to the condition of our hearts and not by the sins we've committed, so we have to look at the whole person and not just at the label we've assigned them. It all comes down to mercy,… we have to show our brothers and sisters the mercy we would like God to have with us.

Today's Prayer:
Jesus, I'm sorry I brush aside Your children although, I too, am guilty of so much. I would hate for You to label me according to the sins I've committed, so please touch my heart so that I don't do it to others. Help me, Lord, to see Your people and their hearts, not just their actions. In Your Name we pray, amen.



Lumineux: Letting God's Light Shine
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