God is Good

This month’s 30-Day Devotional highlight comes from my ninth devotional study “God is Good.” I think it’s my favorite. It’s really hard to choose a favorite, but I think it might be mine. I wrote it in less than two months, and it was a life-changing gift from God at a time I desperately needed it. I originally released it in August of 2023, and two years later, I still don’t feel like I’ve turned loose of it. More than any other writing project, this one has stayed with me. It later provided inspiration for a set of adult Sunday School lessons and then more recently for a devotional for church. God used it to change my thinking and help me significantly with some lifelong struggles, so I can’t say enough good things about it and am forever grateful for the impact it’s had on my life.

Without too much difficulty choosing this time around, I went with Day 3 for this highlight, and I hope you enjoy it!

 Guilty

“…And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.” -John 8:11

John 8:1-11

The woman in our passage today was clearly guilty. The missing man, who evidently got a free pass from the scribes and Pharisees, was too, but, still, she was guilty–taken in the very act of adultery. And, the Law was clear: She should be stoned.

The scribes and Pharisees brought her to Jesus, not because they cared about what she’d done, but because she was a pawn in their game of trying to trap Jesus. At first, Jesus ignored them. But, when they wouldn’t let up, in His goodness and grace, Jesus, knowing the crowd wasn’t so cold their consciences couldn’t be pricked by their own sins, said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (John 8:7). 

Not a single stone was thrown that day because the only one there with a right to throw one was the one who wouldn’t, was the one who told her after the crowd left, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). Jesus offered her grace and a new beginning.

I’m so grateful God is good even when we deserve to be condemned. Our sin might not be adultery, but we’re all guilty of sin. Thus, all any of us deserve is eternity in Hell for the sins we’ve committed against a perfectly holy God. Yet, in His goodness, He made a way for grace, even though it cost Him much–so much. He made a way for us to experience forgiveness and walk in newness of life. He’s good even when we deserve nothing but His condemnation. How we should ever praise and worship Him for being so good to us when we’re so undeserving!

God is good when we deserve to be condemned.