Blog #54 - Forgiveness

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:32

Forgiveness is the foundation of the Christian faith. Without Christ's forgiveness, we would all be hell bound, but because of His sacrifice, we will exist eternally in His grace and presence.

Since our goal as Christians should be to live as Christ lived, it is obvious that forgiveness should be an integral part of that life.

I recently watched Cliffe Knechtle debating some college kids on campus, as he often does. In this video the students were absolutely disgusted with Cliff's admission that he had racist friends. Cliff laughingly responded with "You guys are part of a cancel culture that doesn't understand grace and forgiveness" and he's absolutely right.

Our society loves to throw stones at the slightest of impropriates. We go after people online, get them fired from their jobs and ostracize them in their own communities.

The idea of compassion, understanding or forgiveness isn't even considered when there are people to cancel. We get online like a pack of rabid dogs looking to devour our latest victim yet it's often the most ruthless who have the most skeletons in their own closet.

In John Chapter 8, while the crowd was ready to stone the woman who was caught committing adultery, Jesus said "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone". Yet in today's society we believe it's our responsibility to punish anyone who doesn't fall in line with our ideals, despite the fact that all of us are guilty of far worse than that which we deem punishable. The idea of the punishment fitting the crime has fallen to the tribalist agenda.

Did you say "colored people" instead of "people of color"? Then, I hope you lose everything and suffer for the rest of your life! Nevermind that both of those phrases mean the exact same thing. Someone, somewhere decided that one version of that phrase was "offensive" and so you must now walk on eggshells to not confuse the two. That's the attitude of many, especially when they're safely tucked away behind their keyboards.

The fact is, it's not about trying not to offend people, it's a contest to see who can be the most virtuous.

People have become obsessed with validation. While people flipped cars and burned buildings in the name of BLM, people but a black square on their social media in support of criminals who destroyed innocent people's livelihoods and property but those things didn't matter, if you wanted to be virtuous, you put a meaningless black square on your profile.

The irony of it all is that the need to be validated by people online stems from your subconscious guilt of living a shameful, prideful, and sinful life.

You are created in God's image and have innate morality ingrained in you because of it. When you live outside of God's grace and forgiveness, you begin to seek validation that you're "still a good person" from others who are doing the same. You seek ways to feel morally superior when deep down you know you're not.

Your need to punish anyone who makes any mistake is a symptom of your own sin. Accusation, hatred and vitriol is of Satan.

Forgiveness is of God!