Not Guilty? Are You Sure?

“Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God”

(Matthew 19:17, NKJV).

I’m ashamed to admit that when the verdict was rendered in the Casey Anthony trial, my first reaction was the thought, She got away with murder! But then I heard that still, small voice inside me say, “So did you.”

How quickly we forget! Like Casey Anthony and everyone else who has ever walked this earth—with the single exception of the Son of God Himself—I was lost in sin and headed for hell, guilty on all counts, living on Death Row without even realizing it. And then, on July 5, 1974 (exactly 37 years to the day prior to the announcement of Casey Anthony’s “not guilty” verdict), I was “ambushed by Jesus of Nazareth” and declared “not guilty.” God, in His sovereignty and by His mercy and grace, plucked me off of Death Row and translated me from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of His dear Son. What a miracle! And yet, 37 years later, how readily I respond to what appears a travesty of justice with words of condemnation.

Forgive me, Lord! It is not that God at that moment dealt with my heart to believe Casey Anthony was indeed innocent of the crime of killing her precious daughter, but instead that He reminded me of the old saying, “There but for the grace of God go I.” God was not caught off-guard by this unexpected verdict, and He declares in His Word that He is “not mocked.” Our sins will certainly “find us out”—not just Casey Anthony’s but ours too, unless they are forgiven and “under the blood” of the Savior who already went to Death Row and beyond for us.

Did Casey Anthony get away with murder? I don’t know…but God does. And He loves her so much that He sent His only Son to die for her so that she could have the opportunity to turn to Him for forgiveness. May we pray that she does, for as we are reminded in the Scriptures, it is only by His mercies that we all are not consumed and rightfully cast into hell.

What a mighty and merciful God we serve! May we remember to walk humbly before Him, remembering that we are only declared “not guilty” because of the sacrifice of the only truly “not guilty” One Himself.