After sermon today, I told myself I need to share this with my friends.
I planned on writing as soon as I get home from church, but as soon as I got home, I passed out on my bed.
So here I go now:
John 8:1-11
1But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" 6They 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. 7When 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." 8Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9At 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. 10Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
11"No one, sir," she said.
"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
Whenever I read this verse, it always reminded me of Matthew 7:5:
"You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
I always thought Jesus was telling us that we are all sinners, therefore we cannot judge each other.
and also I thought John 8:1-11 showed one of the attempts to test Jesus.
But what the pastor told us and shared with us was far beyond what I got.
He said when he read John 8:1-11, he saw Jesus' love for people.
Those people who accused the woman were religious leaders at the time and they knew the law and followed them well.
Pastor said to love is more important than to discern what is right and wrong.
Those leaders from the scripture reading may have the ability to tell what is right and wrong from their book of the law, but the ability to love people is so much more powerful than just following the law.
Where those leaders condemned the woman was like a church place.
Church is a place for people to be comforted, accepted, and loved; it's a place where people's spiritual revivals should take place, where God's undying love prevails in people's hearts, where people are the witness of God's salvation, and where people's hearts become like Jesus', loving one another regardless of what sorts of sins that people may have committed.
Church is the place of love. Agape love.
It's so easy to hate people. It's so easy to find faults in others.
Disagreement in beliefs, opinions, customs, traditions, lifestyle, and pride in myself and believing that what I do is right. Unable or unwilling to see in other's point of view.
Why is it so hard to love?
I always say I have a love-and-hate relationship with the humanity, or the world.
I hate the humanity for our dark and sinful nature and at times I have a hard time forgiving or loving myself, because I, myself, is such a sinner.
Then sometimes I love the humanity, because I see hopes in God that we were created in his image and we struggle to be like Him. Although we always fall short of his glory, we continue to struggle and try to sanctify ourselves for the time when we join Him in the world of everlasting love and peace. I love witnessing people's change; not just positive changes, but also negative changes. Over the years, I've learned that we can't always change for the better. There will always be struggle whether we change for the better or worse. Going higher and higher, changing for the better and always staying on the "right" path is what we all hope for and is what we all try, but it's impossible to stay that way all the time. If our appearance is doing the right thing, our mind would sin; and vice versa. Our dark times wake us and keep us on our toes.
From the past few years, I've learned to enjoy the times of struggle. I often times try to look at things in many different perspectives, and I think -this is a rather dangerous and possibly misleading to state- that we are beautiful when we struggle. Our darkness in hearts can make us and shape us into beautiful people. When our hearts finds strength from God, we can be the witness of God's love.
The light is the brightest in the darkest room.
I picture a ray of moonlight piercing through the silence and the darkness of my room at night. How it shines; how beautiful it is.
Let God be the moonlight and let Him shine on me, so that I can be the witness.
My favorite part of his sermon was when he shared that sometimes when people are in leader positions in church, it's so easy for them to become just "teachers" of the law.
Just simply teaching people what they should do and what they shouldn't. and criticizing others or judging them, calling them out for their sins...
God doesn't teach us to be just teachers, but rather, He teaches us to have the heart like His so that we can love. so that we can testify to love. to HIS LOVE.
So I pray that our hearts become like one of God's and that our hearts can love one another like God loves us.
Even after sermon, I still have a love-and-hate relationship with the humanity.
It's hard to truly understand these things and take them into our hearts.
But like my mom says sometimes, "hate the sins, not the people."
This is one of the epiphany moments in my long journey with Christ.
I cannot wait to see what more He will reveal to me and you.
I know I'm terrible at writing, but I hope God has touched you and showed you His love that He showed me this morning.
I want to share the love. I want to love until I can say from the bottom of my heart, "I love."
