This gets me thinking about my own guilt. My own sin that I take to my judge and who then takes it and covers it with His blood. He puts it as far as the east is from the west.
On the jury I was called to be impartial to hear the facts of the case and then render a judgment guilty or innocent. I believe in the judicial system and even though I had my thoughts from the opening statements I was wondering what the defense was going to do to give us evidence or a cause to say he was not guilty.
My not guilty pardon from my Heavenly Father is so clear in:
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his only and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not parish but have everlasting life.
God loves us so much that He came down to earth and died for us! I marvel at that love. His love for us is so real and so tangible that if we believe in Him, he gives us eternal life.
God knows everything there is about me - the good, bad and the ugly. Yet, He forgave me. He continues to mold me and to shape the future. How amazing is that.
I got called into Jury duty again in September only to find out that I had been excused for August and September. It would have been nice if someone would have told me. I never thought to ask if I had been excused.
It is the same with God. He has excused everyone who believes in Him and the work that was done on the cross. That the debt for our sins has been paid by Jesus Christ.
I ended up showing up to a place I didn't have to because I never thought to ask. I never called the Court and asked if the judge had excused me. I ended up showing up to a place I never had to go to. If I would have asked I would have found out that I was forgiven.
There are a lot of people who are going to be showing up somewhere when they die that they don't expect because they never asked if they had been excused. If the "pardon" had come through. They never went to the judge and told Him that they believed He had the power to forgive them. They end up taking the penalty on themselves because they just thought if they were good, nice and didn't hurt anyone they would end up being not guilty.
Confess with your Mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe....
I ended up staying that day of jury duty and then called to see if I was now still excused or if I had now lost that. They said I didn't need to report for jury duty any more. By that time I was kind of frustrated because I had resigned myself that I was on jury duty and I kind of liked it. This may be a bit of a stretch but, isn't that the way sin kind of is in our lives. We know it is wrong and yet we continue to return to it again and again.
I have been freed from my sin, but yet the world offers so much of it to us on a platter. We need to take each thought captive and flee from sin. I used to tell my neice to keep her running shoes on. I thought of Joseph when he was being suduced by Potiphar's wife and how he ran.
That is how we need to be with sin - we need to know when to run from it. We need to be active in capturing each thought and responding to sin with the word of God ready on our tounge. The only way that happens is when we are in right relationship with Him.
If we don't pray, if we don't talk to God, if we don't read his word are we in relationship with Him? If our life is all about ourselves and the things we want to do and the places we want to go then have we truly trusted God with anything?
There is a video my husband showed to me once - of a guy and a girl that are walking and they come upon a stagnet stinky pond - they are disgusted by it. Then a guy pops out of the middle of it and is shouting happily. They ask him what is he doing in there. He looks around and realizes that he is in the middle of this yucky pond and then doesn't know what he is doing there. So they tell him to come out but he is unable to get out of the pond. So the guy goes to help him. He gets him out of the pond and all three of them are standing on the shore and the guy that they got out of the pond thanks them - then goes back into the pond and dives under again. The girl tells her friend to come on come out of the pond he says yeah I will then turns around and dives back into the cess pool. She can't believe it. They say the don't want to be in the middle of all that "yuck" but they keep jumping back into it. Sin is like that - we look at it and say gross but when it comes time to really give it up we just don't want to.
The last day to call in for jury duty was Sept. 28th. I had set my phone for it and when it went of I called just to see - not planing on going in but wondering what was going on. The call in report was that our term of jury duty was over.
We all are appointed one time to die and then comes judgement. Have you truly trusted your life to Christ? Have you went to the Judge and asked him to pardon you. The truth is it is already granted but if you don't go to Him and ask to see it and trust your life to Him it won't be granted to you. You will pay the price which was already paid for you. Is anything worth that?
