Leave Your Life

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "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?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

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, "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

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." JOHN 8:1-11

Insight

Scripture doesn't tell us what happened to the woman caught in adultery. We don't know if this encounter with Jesus changed her infidelity to devotion, lust to true love, and her sin to a sincere desire to know the one who said, "I do not judge you." You have to believe this encounter shook her to her core. Caught in an act that was punishable by death, drug across town into the temple courts, and cast before a group of people, the retribution was inevitable. She knew it, and the crowd knew it as well. But then she encounters Jesus, and she is now free.

Jesus enters this situation and upsets the ordinary course of events by accepting the woman without approving the sin. Jesus doesn't bring up the act. He doesn't start talking about adultery or the other sinful things she has done. Instead, His focus is on the future. It's a picture of love and forgiveness where the charge is, "I've forgiven you. Now go walk in it."

This is a message we all need to hear. So many of us struggle to understand the concept of grace, especially when it comes to past shortcomings and failures. Sometimes forgiveness seems almost unobtainable.

Some operate every day from a place of constant condemnation, whether it is from themselves or others. They carry the baggage of past relationships with them into the future. They also hold onto their guilt and shame while at the same time trying to walk with God.

The problem with this is that when one lives under constant condemnation, one cannot have life. They are incapable of living freely. Why? When the junk we created in the past frames our lives, we find ourselves imprisoned to live a life shaped by fear, guilt, and shame.

What does this story mean for YOU? Where do you see yourself in this woman's story? Because if you were to remove the particular circumstance of her position, and enter yours, aren't you in the same place as she was? We are all in need of the same Savior. Jesus enters the picture so that we don't have to live like this anymore.

When Jesus said, "Go now and leave your life of sin," He wasn't saying, "Go and earn back your life," He was saying you have been given life, now go and do something with it. Take what you have encountered through Me, allow it to shape who you are, and LIVE it out. Let it spill out into every area of your life.

This doesn't mean from this point forward that we aren't going to face fear or feel pain when we see those who have carried past stones. What it does mean is that we are no longer defined by it. We are to live freely under the authority of God and His grace. The demands of the law replaced by grace - this is what should now define us. God is saying to us all: now GO and LIVE.

Reflection

• Where are you holding on to baggage from your past? What would it look like for you to "GO and LIVE"?

Prayer

God, help me to go and live. Allow me to walk and trust in Your freedom. May I view myself through my new identity in You. In Your name, Jesus. Amen.