While you sip your coffee, may I share something with you so maybe we can wrestle out from under today before it begins?

Because I suspect you’ve already been “thinking” this morning—

Things like…

When will I learn?

I’ll probably just mess it up.

If people only knew….

Such an idiot.

Such a temper.

So clumsy.

So…blah.

Have you been thinking this morning?

If so, I’d like to tell you a story you’ve heard before.

But I’d like to tell it to you the way I read it, the way Jesus tells it to me.

It’s not a story about pulsing heartbeats or souls wearing people—but about things unseen, the unbreathing things of arid places.

~

Long before she made her last near-fatal mistake, she’d already spent a lifetime of waking to thoughts of hollowness.

Mary Magdalene was already convinced that whatever her culture would do to her if she were caught, didn’t compare to looking in the mirror every day.

For reasons unknown, Mary had no one to protect her, no one to take up for her, and she felt unloved enough to go searching in dangerous places.

Every day, she woke to inner accusations… You’re worthless. Death becomes you. You’re no better than—.

Accusers don’t require sleep.

Then a Man named Jesus found her encircled by religious vultures armed to crush her, if only He would nod His yes.

But this was not at all what it appeared to be.

This was life imitating heart.

The violence happening in the natural visible world was exactly what was happening inside her war-weary heart every bleeding moment.

Accusers inside her mind hurled thoughts like iron shot puts, crushing her to her hopeless lowest before she even rose out of bed.

Every day.

Until Jesus.

After Jesus shewed the stage empty of slobbering gossips and bloodthirsty legalists, He straightened, because He’d bent low for her….

He had a question for Mary, but it was not, Where did the men go?

The men were irrelevant.

Instead, He asked a more precious question Mary would understand:

Woman, where are your Accusers?

Silence….

Silence.

Mary knew what accusers Jesus was talking about.

He surely wasn’t asking about the men with rocks. They had a different agenda.

He was asking about her own accusing thoughts….

The ones that were gone now.

It was silent inside her… after how many years?

For the first time in a long time, Mary’s mind was delivered and peaceful in the Presence of Jesus, where condemnation is torched by His Love.

But He wasn’t finished….

Then neither do I condemn you. Go, and don’t sin anymore.

We’d be absolutely dull to assume the rescuing Christ was simply telling her to change her lifestyle—that’s what a mere human would say to her.

The Spirit of the One who gave her life knew what her sin was—the root of her reasons….

It was her self hatred.

Her self-condemnation.

Go, and don’t sin anymore, Mary. Go, and stop condemning yourself, Mary, because all that happened today is a symptom of your self-accused heart.

Today was life imitating heart.

There is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus for those who continue to walk in His Spirit. (Romans 8:1)

Take one step without His loving Spirit and we’re toast. We’ll listen to every dark notion that comes along.

 

So friend, next time you catch yourself doing this, look around and realize you’re not just thinking those negative thoughts—you’re listening to them.

Accusers, armed with rocks.

It doesn’t matter if you suspect they’re true.

They’re stepping stones that will lead you where you don’t want to go while following the pied song of darkness.

Eventually, our lives will imitate what’s in our heart.

So with Jesus sheltering you, look up from where you’ve been thrown down, and look around—in slow motion, survey your surroundings….

What do you see?

Is it possible that what you’re experiencing is actually the manifestation of something you’ve long believed about yourself?

Kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Could it be a case of life imitating heart?

What if, like Mary Magdalene, the unforgiving rock-thrower is within…

—guilty, lazy, moody, worthless, useless, unlovable.

Jesus said to love our enemies—

Love that enemy? The one inside?

Maybe we judge ourselves because we know, were we to drag ourselves before the Messiah, He would be too kind, too compassionate, forgiving us too easily.

And then we would truly once and for all be free to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

 

 

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Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

 ~ Proverbs 4:23

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If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God…

~ 1 John 3:20-21