Woman Faces Court For Parking Two Seconds Too Early
Richard Hartley-Parkinson reports:
Known only as Sarah, she ended up in court after it emerged that she had broken parking rules by arriving at a bay two seconds too soon.
... Judge Frank Caprio from the Providence Municipal Court, read details of the case which stated that she had parked in a bay at 9.59am and 58 seconds.
Parking was not allowed in the area between 8am and 10am.
He told her in mock anger: ‘You violated the city ordinances.’ He added: ‘Our parking enforcement offices are second to none in the country.’
She explained her actions by saying her car clock said 10am.
Judge Caprio laughed the charge out of court in Rhode Island after hearing details of the case.
He said: ‘I think 9.59am is close enough to 10am, matter is dismissed.
Is this what you imagine will happen when you stand before God? Are you hoping that He will, likewise, release you from the finer details of His moral will?
That’s not how it will work. You will either stand before God to be judged by the minutest details of your non-compliance, including the thoughts and intents of your heart, or you will stand before Him having been credited with the minutest details of Christ’s compliance. There is no middle-ground. There is no third option. It's either law or grace. You decide!
“Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law” (Galatians 2:16).
"Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin" (Romans 3:20).
The Perfect Crime
Jacob Baynham,with VICE Guided Tours, writes:
The blood is still drying on Clay McCann's hands when he walks into a remote ranger station, slides a warm gun across the desk, and informs the ranger that he's just killed four campers.
"Do you want me to call a lawyer?" the alarmed ranger asks.
"I am a lawyer," McCann says.
So begins C. J. Box's 2007 thriller Free Fire, the seventh in a book series about a Wyoming game warden. The novel's plot spins on the premise that in an uninhabited, 50-square-mile portion of Yellowstone National Park, you can legally get away with murder.
The book's premise originates from a 14-page article called "The Perfect Crime" by Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt. The article describes a judicial no-man's land in the Idaho part of Yellowstone, where a person can commit a crime and get off scot-free due to sloppy jurisdictional boundaries.
... "I write about mystery, suspense, and crime, so the idea of a perfect crime anywhere, and especially in my neighborhood, was just really intriguing," Box told me over the phone.
His novel, Free Fire, made the New York Times extended best-seller list and continues to be popular.
The perfect crime seems a strange thing to call a violation of the law just because the perpetrator happens to find a loophole. The loophole might be perfect, but the crime? The only way to perfect a crime is to pay the penalty associated with it. Of course, in Jesus we find both. In HIm our crimes paid in full, having been nailed to the cross of Christ.
Thus, we find the loophole to end all loopholes, not in the Idaho part of Yellowstone, but before the Throne of Grace. It is the ultimate judicial no-man's land, where even those who are guilty of breaking the very laws of God can be released of responsibility. Not due to sloppy jurisdictional boundaries but due to the precious blood of Christ.
“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13-14).
The Colonel's Not So Secret Disappointment
Matt Blitz writes:
Over the last year, fervor has erupted over Colonel Sanders’ television re-emergence and the actors casted to play the company’s iconic founder. Lost in the hubbub, though, was that Colonel Sanders was real and built KFC with his own two greasy hands. Sanders sold the company in 1964, but for years afterwards, he would regret it. In fact, Sanders would visit KFCs across the country criticizing the low quality of the food, saying the gravy was horrible and that the extra crispy recipe was nothing more than “a damn fried doughball stuck on some chicken.”
... In fact, he was so open about his disdain for the alterations made to his signature recipes that KFC sued him for libel in 1978. The suit was eventually thrown out.
*Follow the link to source for the full and colorful story behind Colonel Sander's success.
Although the Colonel was responsible for KFC's existence and its success, he hated everything it would go on to become.
One has to wonder if the same thing might be said of the Church. For although Jesus is responsible for her existence and success, she is a far cry from what she used to be.
Is it possible that Jesus hates everything that the Church has become?
How far have we strayed from the original recipe? How much of the world's call to political correctness have we heeded, to the detriment of preaching the Gospel of grace to needy sinners? Do we still preach one Lord, one faith, one baptism?
“For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all” (Ephesians 4:6, NLT)
Despite her many flaws, the Apostle wrote, “… Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25-27).