God of the Second Chance
If you look at the story in John 7:53-8:11 about Jesus and his conversation with the adulterous woman you see that he is God of the Second Chance.
Jesus straightened up and said to her, ‘… Has no one condemned you?’ She said, ‘No one, sir.’ And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.’
God is interested in not just who we are and what we have been, but what our potential is - he wants us to become the people we could be. So he says to us, sometimes more often than we deserve, ‘OK, you messed up, and you know you did - but I’m giving you another chance to redeem yourself’
Of course, it doesn’t end like there, because that could be taken as an open invitation to keep on messing up without fear of any judgement at all. No, Jesus says to the woman, ‘I’m not going to judge you on this, go away and do something with your life, become the real you… BUT you’re going to have to make changes in your life, you’re going to have to stop doing all this wrong stuff.’
Jesus makes demands, but he knows human nature well enough to know what we’re capable of doing. He doesn’t come down hard and condemn us as sinners, he wants to inspire us to become saints, which we can be with his help.
Isn’t that how we ought to be treating other people as well?
Give thanks for the God of the Second Chance!