Brothers and sisters,
Happy Monday to all! Yesterday we worshipped our great God and Savior and realized eternity itself will not exhaust the worship He deserves. We thought from John 8 about how we should respond to those “guilty as charged” by looking at how Jesus responds to the guilty. We saw that Jesus refuses to join the self-righteous crowd seeking to humiliate those deserving condemnation. We also observed Jesus challenges self-righteous condemners with their own sinful lives. We noticed Jesus affirms the dignity of those who have sinned by refusing to condemn and offering forgiveness and a new start. WE ARE TO BE LIKE JESUS, knowing that every single one of us is “guilty as charged” before the Holy God of the universe. Jesus can say to us as the “guilty as charged” that we are not condemned, and we too can turn our backs on sin and seek to sin no more. Why can Jesus say this to us? Because Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, dying on the cross in our place, so that we, and every sinner who will look to Him, could be justly forgiven. Jesus withholds condemnation guilty sinners deserve so they might receive His just forgiveness and be saved from sin.
We will be continuing our virtual Bible Study of the book of Galatians this Wednesday, May 5th at 6:30 PM. We will be studying Galatians 5. If you would like to be part of this study, let me know so I can add you to the email list to send you the weekly link.
Remember to keep praying continually for each other.
Bob Ray, Pastor, East Madison Baptist Church