For those of you who have been within a 5,000 mile radius of either a newspaper or CNN, you likely have heard bits and pieces of the Jody Arias trial. I am thinking the publicity of the case was causing jealousy and that is why OJ Simpson was back in the news this week. Well, Jody's glove did fit, and Jody Arias was convicted of murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander and she could now face the death penalty. I wrote an article about this a while back, Jody Arias, lessons from a killer girlfriend.
I don't have a lot more to ad but there are some things that from God's perspective really will make you think. First, Travis suffered horribly for 2 minutes. 120 seconds. That can feel like an eternity in those conditions. He seemed like an innocent victim in the wrong place at the wrong time. He grew up in very sad conditions as his family were amphetamine addicts. He shared stories of growing up with no food and only finding some moldy bread to eat when he was a young child. His life was turned around when he went to live with family in Arizona who were devoted Mormons and he credits that for giving him something to live for. He met Jody at a work conference and they followed their hearts and did what felt good and seemed like it was harming no one, and he introduced her to the Mormon religion and she was baptized.
From the world's perspective things seemed fine. What find upstanding religious citizens! What a great turn around from a life of hopelessness! What a happy couple just following their heart! They are in love! What potential! What a future!
And the world is in shock because of how evil someone like Jody was and how innocent Travis was.
Jody really wants to die instead of life imprisonment. She stated that once she is dead she will be free. That is a lie of the devil and if she never gets saved she will end up in hell. Dying lost catapults you into the lake of fire where you experience the second death. But the bible says your torment lasts forever.
But if you want to really see how the justice of God defies the common sense of man here it is. Travis is in hell right now. The suffering he felt when murdered in comparison to hellfire is closer to remembering a small paper cut or a hang nail. He trusted a false religion and a false Christ and he trusted a gospel of good works instead of the Bible. He ignored God's warnings Paul gives in Galatians that even if an angel from heaven were to preach another gospel, he was to be accursed. The Bible is the soul authority and it is blasphemy to share it's authority with anything else. The Mormon religion puts it on par or below the book of Mormons. The catholic church puts the Bible below church tradition and church teaching. The Jehovah Witnesses put the Bible below the Watchtower. They might give the Bible lip service but by their works they deny it. Further Travis ignored God's warnings about fornication. And to beware of the adulterous woman. The book of Proverbs says that "Her house is the way to hell". That is where Travis is tonight. It is where Travis will be a billion years from now. Travis is burning in hell. That is far worse than the 2 minutes he suffered on his way out of here. Hell is forever. Travis is never getting out.
God's thoughts are not our thoughts and God's ways are not our ways. Jody was a wicked cruel jealous girlfriend but God says He does not delight in the death of the wicked. God says he is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. God's desire is still that Jody Arias would turn from her sin and turn to Jesus Christ.
Jody Arias could still get saved on her way to death row. The murderer could end up in heaven while the one murdered is burning in hell. It seems unfair if we are honest. Let's say a bunch of Christians start praying for her salvation instead of her damnation. God would start drawing her and convicting her of her guilt. She could soon end up attending a Bible study at the prison. If she starts seeing the truth compared with the lies she was taught in the Mormon faith, and starts seeing Jesus loves her when all she felt was rejection her whole life, she might embrace the Jesus of the Bible. She could get humbled and become afraid of death and would now see her need for the true and living God. Like the thief on the cross, she could look to Jesus in saving faith and be born again.
Regardless of what she did before that point.
And because of what she did, her need for salvation would seem larger in her eyes.
And that would produce a greater love for JESUS ONCE SHE WAS SAVED THAT "minimal sinners" would rarely comprehend. He that is forgiven much loveth much.
That is why America really does not understand the Bible.
That is a strong possibility. Especially if someone mails this to Jody in prison. Wouldn't that be the kicker? Every self righteous American Christian waiting for a Death Penalty Verdict would get something they didn't expect. Justice. Only the Justice found at the cross. This is why the cross is so offensive. Surely, Jesus would not have died for her. Ok, you must be a Calvinist. The Bible says Whosover. The Bible is full of the outcasts of society and those committing all kinds of horrible crimes in both the eyes of men and of God repenting and getting saved. God is not a respecter of persons.
This though shows 1. the grace of God and 2. the hopelessness of man apart from Jesus Christ. The world is shocked at how evil someone like Jody is. I just heard about this couple from Canada selling their pick up truck. Another couple went to check it out and asked to test drive it. The prospective buyers and the owner went for a drive. His wife was confused because he never came home. The buyers murdered him, dumped his body, and took off with the truck. In Ohio a man was just caught who had chained up and raped 3 women over a 10 year period. This world is messed up. Human beings can commit horrible crimes that Hollywood can't even think up.
What humanity doesn't want to examine is that Jody Arias might be just like anyone of us. None of us can say that if we grew up the same way she did, and had the same morals instilled in her and the same abuses we could never fall to that level. Apart from the grace of God, any one of us is capable of anything. I can prove it. Imagine if you were born in the jungles of Papau New Guinea and from a young child were taught that after you kill your enemy you cook him up and eat him to capture his powers. Cannibalism would be a normal way of life and if your whole family had someone over for dinner, and literally had someone over for dinner, you would be the odd ball if you announced you became a vegetarian. I am by no means removing personal responsibility, but I am merely saying that the Bible is true when it says there is none righteous no not one.
And Jesus is a lot harder on the religious than the murderer, adulterer and publican (who cheated men). Why?
I think there are several reasons. First is that sins against God are worse than sins against men. The Pharisees produced a false religion and boasted how they knew God and were full of pride. They could not be helped because they thought they were good. Someone that falls into horrible sin and is suddenly hit with the bill are often humbled and remorseful and begging for mercy. They often think they are too bad to be forgiven, but if someone who is truly humbled and truly broken hears the good news that God saves sinners and God died in their place, they just may look to Jesus Christ for salvation. The self righteous Pharisee looks at "those kind of people" and says, "They don't deserve nothing" and they refuse to extend the hand of grace out. Not that they have any grace to give.
Jody Arias did something wicked and deserving of Hell. But so do we. The Bible says hatred is murder. Yet we don't believe that because we think we are something. We don't see the true enormity of our sinful and deceitful hearts and how wicked we really are. And we see a sinner like Jody Arias and cry, "kill her! she is wicked! she murdered!". Yet we murdered 8 people in our minds on our way to work on a daily basis. And lust is adultery and we committed adultery a half dozen times in the checkout line at the grocery store ogling at the models on the magazine covers.
Part of America's problem is we have more in common with the Pharisees than real Christianity. We who profess to know God think we must be doing pretty good because we are going to church. Yet Jesus ran to sinners. We seem to turn our noses on them. If there is any doubt, how do we act when we run into a queer? Yes sodomy is an abomination according to the bible, but most sodomites were raped or abused by older men and basically picked up a demonic hitchhiker that will only leave if they get saved. Would Jesus minister to them and want them saved? Or would he call down fire from heaven? Are you secure in your own sexuality to reach out to a sodomite with compassion yet believe the Bible enough to know that unless there is repentance of the lifestyle, there is no salvation?
Today's Christianity is truly messed up. The latest Rick Warren issue involves homosexuality. He gave a wishy washy modern explanation for gays that "profess Christ." He claims they will go to heaven if they are still gay but believed on Jesus. That is today's Christianity. It is so powerless and so blind that it doesn't understand the supernatural work of God. When you get saved you get new desires and new direction and God really moves in. We are insecure in that fact because our results are so compromised so we water down our doctrine to fit our results. If you are teaching false salvations you will not see homosexuals delivered. So you will reinvent the Bible to match your experience. Yet no one thinks to question their results by the bible. So you have one Christianity camp that sees no repentance but says everyone is saved, so the natural deduction is homosexuals who stay homosexuals after believing in Jesus must be saved. The next conclusion for them is then homosexuality can't be a sin.
The other camp is so insecure in their results that they don't want to touch homosexuality with a 10 foot poll. Except to say how much they hate it. God hates sin. The cross is proof. Yet we offer no hope to a group that is taking over the world Not everyone wants to embrace this curse. Yet they feel that is their only option. I believe it is the devil's counterfeit to someone who is born again. They hear the "plan of sodomy" and get recruited to try it or it is forced on them. Then it seems some evil spirit then hounds them and won't let up. Then they give in completely and they get turned into a sodomite. They talk the same, they are united in their beliefs, they have a new way of living and there seems to be a moment when they embrace this and accept it and they care more about embracing it then what people might think. Yet God I think would be extending mercy and offering hope to those in bondage. You can get victory over this lifestyle. When you get saved that demon leaves and the desires for normal sexuality start to return. But it is not to become straight, it is to become saved they must turn. True freedom from homosexuality is in falling in love with the right man-- the Lord Jesus Christ.
Are we secure enough in our salvation to truly bring a message of deliverance to the lost? The lesbian? The lust filled ladies? The losers in society? The left out to dry? Or are we so comfortable creating false converts that we just avoid those who we just wouldn't want sitting next to us in case this was the week they backslide?
Church, Jesus is supposed to set the captives free. The murderer becomes a magnificent mom. The homosexual becomes a happy husband. The drunkard becomes a dedicated deacon. The crack addict becomes a caring counselor. And so on.
The true gospel delivers. The problem is the church is better today at producing conforming cookie cutter Pharisees than truly compassion converts. So we see a sodomite or a Jody Arias and thank God we are not as they are.
In God's eyes, we just might be worse.
It is time church to repent, and truly say, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
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