Faith Venture

Paul writes to the Ephesians, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us.”

I am curious about this action of God. Actually, I’m more curious about how we, as humans, accept the redemption of others. Most of us probably live day-by-day not even aware that we ourselves are redeemed or forgiven by God. How many times have you sinned already today? Probably not really big ones, though. Right?

But how about the times you done some bigger bad things? Could you accept God’s forgiveness? Or, can you accept that God forgives others? I know that for some people healing from the sin of someone else takes forgiveness of the other to begin to heal.

I thought about this during the weekend when Michael Vick was about to play in an NFL football game in the playoffs. He participated in some barbarian activities using animals–he supported dog fighting. I know that this is a male diversion in many parts of the world. But we try to be more civilized here. We count that as a sin and have made it illegal.

However, Vick acknowledged his sin and spent time in jail–perhaps having to forgo a career worth perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars. But he served his time and emerged promising to turn his life around. And, so far, so good.
Many people hold Vick’s past activities against him and evidently believe that one should never be forgiven for past sins. God doesn’t feel that way–and we should all be eternally grateful for that. We are still accountable for our actions. If we but acknowledge our short comings, God is steadfast in his support of us. The least we can do is to act the same way to a fellow member of the human family.

Then we have the tragedy in Arizona. We know little about the young man who went “crazy” and started firing his automatic pistol at a crowd. But what a shame that someone, sometime ago, perhaps an older man in his life, couldn’t have provided some support. According to stories, many people were afraid of him. But, so far as we know, no one stepped in.

Maybe we should be even more watching for troubled souls who need a human to intervene and show God’s redemption so that they don’t have to take terrible action.

But this I know–I am grateful for God’s redemption, and I’m grateful when people turn their lives around for the better. Wish I could share that better.