Jack of Harts

I’ve heard lately a charge coming from some that Christians who support those who have sinned are hypocrites. This usually comes from people who are not Christians. Perhaps they think that Christians believe they are holier than thou and should cringe from those who have sinned. But that misses the entire point of Christianity.

We have all sinned. All of us have done things we should not have done. We have fallen short of the glory of God. The Reverend Franklin Graham is a famous example of someone who rebelled in his youth. His father was a world famous preacher man, and Franklin walked away from all of it. He spent his youth in rough places and doing things a Christian should not. And then he came back. He was, as we say, born again and chose to live a new life. He joined his father’s ministry, and in time the black sheep of the family became the head of that ministry.

Anyone can be Redeemed you see. Many of our greatest leaders did bad things before coming to God. The Apostle Paul who spread The Word across the world was once Saul, a man who persecuted and killed Christians in Jerusalem. We do blame Saul for doing those horrible things. But we celebrate Paul for the good things he did.

For we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

We are taught from our youngest days not to judge people for the things they did in the past. Judge them for what they do now. Because people can change. They can spend their life doing better than they did. It is why we support statutes of limitations in our laws. It is why we treat children differently than adults when they are charged with crimes. We recognize that people change. We know that they are not the same person they were a year ago, seven years ago, or forty years ago. Because neither are we.