A question Jesus asked

Where are your accusers?

What Jesus was really asking

A woman is dragged before Jesus, caught in sin, and a crowd with stones waits for His verdict. He says, let the one without sin throw the first stone, and one by one they leave. Then He asks her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? And He says, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

How the question still finds us

Many of us live under a crowd of accusers, some of them other people, many of them the voice in our own head. Jesus' question clears the courtroom. He is the only one with the right to condemn, and He does not. His mercy is not permission to keep hurting yourself and others; it is the freedom to go and live differently, no longer defined by the worst thing you have done.

Sit with it

Whose accusing voice still defines you, and what would change if you heard Jesus say, Neither do I condemn you?