Matthew 27:24<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all\u2026he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, \u2018I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.\u2019 \u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, Pilate. You are not free from blood guilt.\u201d Because Pilate knew Jesus was a just man, he should have stood his ground for truth. After bowing to the pressures from the crowd, he made a superficial show of hand washing to symbolize his innocence. \u201cHow can you be innocent when you just asked your men to crucify a righteous man? Where is the logic in that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We should stand for and defend the cause of the righteous, particularly when we have the power to do so. We cannot excuse ourselves from guilt if we participate in evil. Except in exceptional cases of physical force, we will not be guiltless if we do evil and then pretend that we were forced into it. All such false excuses and other forms of superficial cleansing cannot free us from the power of our evil actions. Only the blood of Jesus can truly cleanse us from all sin and only in Him are we free from all bloodguilt. Let\u2019s not go after superficial cleansing. Let\u2019s not go for cheap moral satisfaction and self-justification. If we have sinned, let\u2019s own up to it and seek true cleansing from the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFather, I know I cannot claim righteousness if my actions were unrighteous. I will not accept any fraudulent cleansing. Only the blood of Your Son can truly cleanse me, and it is in that blood that I make my plea. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew 27:24 \u201cWhen Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all\u2026he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, \u2018I am innocent of the blood of this just Person. You see to it.\u2019 \u201d \u201cNo, Pilate. You are not free from blood guilt.\u201d Because Pilate knew Jesus was a just man, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-matthew"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Reflections-from-Matthew.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4600,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4598\/revisions\/4600"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}