Jesus Teaches about Forgiveness

Jesus Teaches About Forgiveness

Jesus Teaches About Forgiveness statues at Thanksgiving Point

At Thanksgiving Point is Ashton Gardens, in Lehi, Utah.  There is a display there called Light of the World.  It is a beautiful set of statues that touched my heart.  They depict the life of Jesus Christ.  I took the above photo and drew my version as a coloring page.  

The local Jewish religious leaders once brought a woman to Jesus.  She had been caught committing adultery.   The Law of Moses said that she should be stoned.  The Jewish leaders actually did not have authority to pass capital punishment.  The Jewish leaders also knew that Jesus taught love and forgiveness.  They were hoping to be able to be able to criticize Jesus for whatever His decision was.  Things did not happen as they hoped.

Jesus looked at the woman and looked at them and said, "He that is without sin let him first cast a stone at her."  Older men tend to be wiser than younger men.  Beginning at the eldest down to the youngest they all slunk away.  The Lord asked the woman where her accusers were or and who condemned her.  She answered, "No man Lord."  Jesus then said, "Neither do I condemn you, go your way and sin no more."  Jesus did not condone or excuse her sin, but gave her the opportunity to repent.

This story is in John chapter 8.

I love this story because we are all sinners and Jesus gives us all an opportunity to repent.  I feel that very personally.   Jesus and our Heavenly Father will not say that sinning is OK, but he will give us a chance to repent and mend our ways. But we must remember that this life is the time to prepare to meet God and to not procrastinate the day of our repentance.  If we knowingly live a life of sin and then think that on our deathbed we can completely repent, then I believe that things are not going to work out for us.   So we all must try to do our best now.  Then if we mess up we repent as fast as we can and try to not repeat the sin.  God and his Son Jesus Christ are anxious to grant us forgiveness if we will repent and again, try and do our best afterwards.  I believe the Lord needs to see us making that effort to live without the sin.  He does not expect us to reach perfection in mortality, so don't beat yourself up for being imperfect.  Our Savior will recognize our intent to do good and our efforts to do better in our lives.  I think that is much of the message I got from LDS General Conference this weekend.