A Rare Thing

Forgiveness is a rare thing because it is something that the world has never offered. 

The world offers excuses, and excuses don't account for what is innately inexcusable in the heart of all men.  It can pardon a murderer, but it can't account for the deeper, darker root of sin in his heart because it does not understand its own depravity.  "Everyone makes mistakes."  But why?!  It is not enough to redeem a man by excusing him from his mistakes.

God could care less about action then the state of the heart behind those actions.  Skeptics of the Bible often argue that Christians don't keep to Old Testament law or that Old Testament law doesn't apply anymore because Jesus abolished that law (which is not true because even Jesus himself said that wasn't the case in Matthew 5:17-20).

On one hand, we are saved from God's law because that law is what reveals our depravity (Rom. 7:4-6).  God set a standard for holiness in the Old Testament that he commanded be obeyed to a T, all the while knowing that we couldn't (Rom. 3:23).  No one has understood or perceived of the greatness and power of his mercy and grace through Jesus Christ without first being convicted of one's shortcomings in upholding these standards no matter how hard one has tried.  This is the beginning of what is called repentance, a turning away from one's old, dead, sinful life to the reception of new, fulfilled life in Christ Jesus through whom we have righteousness that meets the standards of the Old Testament law (Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 5:17, 21).

On the other hand, Christians are not excused from the law.  Remember that Jesus did not abolish the law, but he fulfilled it, meaning that he lived the perfect life that we could not live on our own.  Because we are in him, the drive to pursue holiness by these standards changes the way we live, and it is constantly changing the way we live until the day we die or Jesus returns to take his followers home.  This is what the Bible calls "sanctification."  A constant transformation in heart and mind to the heart and mind of Christ to be obedient to the commands of God.

So, when I fail, when I fall short of the commands of God, I will strive to set the cross before me because there is nothing else to relieve me of shame, guilt, sadness, or darkness.  Defeat is burdensome for me without the forgiveness of God.  It's like trying to swim to the surface of the ocean with a millstone tied to my ankles.  On the cross, God did not only excuse my actions, but he forgave my inexcusable sin, the deepest dark of my heart.  No court of law or any man can do that apart from understanding the forgiveness of God first.

Forgiveness is a rare thing in this world because the world rarely acknowledges the cross.