Before you throw the next stone

Martha Olawale

“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Titus 3:5

In this tech age of living behind our computer screens, we have grown accustomed to taking the judgment throne of our self-designed castles to condemn others. We live like hunters looking for the next prey to fall into our bucket of “the unforgivables.” The moment we hear someone somewhere is caught on camera doing something wrong, we scramble for our justice wand and banish them from the circle of “the perfect people.”

Although we sing the song “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me,” we often forget how helpless we really are outside the grace of God. When we join in the chants to destroy other people because they make mistakes, we diminish the cost of our own salvation. We neglect the power of the grace that saved us through obedience, mercy, and hope in Christ Jesus. Our righteous pride makes us set ourselves higher than the mortal beings we are, thinking we are gods and judges over people. But for Christ, we are as broken and full of errors as any criminal.

I constantly remind myself of my limitations and caution my haughty heart to humble itself before the throne of grace. I want to be like Christ; to love as He loved, and see people the way He sees them. I want to extend forgiveness before I condemn and offer repentance before I give up on people. I want to look inward all the time to acknowledge that I am all that I am by the continuous work of the Holy Spirit and that I can do nothing right, except through God’s grace.

When the people who brought the adulteress to Jesus in John 8 asked that He join in their chants to condemn her, He said “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Verse 7b. It’s so refreshing to see Christ’s love in action. One would expect that His focus would be on the woman’s sin and disgrace, repulsed by the deed and rebuking her for it but Jesus was more tuned in to the possibilities of who she can be when she receives His forgiveness. The men who were eager to condemn her left ashamed because the moment they looked inward; they knew they were not better than her.

Before you cast the next stone or label the next social media victim, you might want to remember what Jesus said. We are products of grace and the only difference between us, and that “terrible person” is Christ. Like the scene in the temple courts in John 8, Jesus stands between us and the people we are so eager to condemn. Our response must always acknowledge Him, sitting there, writing in the sands of our life, telling us not to be so prompt to pull others down but to call them to “go and sin no more.”