By Gina Caswell Kelly
There is lots of good stuff on social media. It is a great way to pass along information. It is a great way to reconnect with old friends. It is a great way to see what people are up to these days. It is a great way for businesses to advertise. There is plenty of good. But… there is the other side of it that just drives sane folks crazy! There is the negative aspect. People are very brave behind a screen. Keyboard warriors are rampant! What I have seen lately on social media is that many people just can’t wait for the next bad thing to happen to someone else. They want to talk about it and include themselves in a discussion that has nothing to do with them.
When someone they know is caught doing something they should not have done, it immediately gets shared 176 times. The comment threads are pages deep. Many times it is people saying, “Well, I knew it. I could just tell.” Or “My sister’s husband’s cousin’s wife said her daughter had an encounter with that person too.” Ummhmm. The comments also include, “He needs to rot in hell.” “She deserves the very worst punishment.” And other things I do not care to say. What is wrong with us??
My thought is we have lost our “grace muscle.” You know how you lose your muscles if you don’t work them. Well, we have flat lost our grace muscle. We do not spend enough time using it! We have seen the greatest example of grace, mercy and forgiveness. We have seen God show us undeserved grace time and time again. We want to jump all over anyone who sins differently than we do. Yes. Read that again. We are all sinners. Some just sin differently than others. God shows us grace when we sin, and yet we are not willing to offer others that same grace. Even when we have no connection to the whole situation. We just want to make a comment. Where is the grace??
In Ephesians, Paul writes, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
John writes, “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”
Again, Paul writes in Romans, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The ultimate picture of grace.
Can we stop for a second and offer grace to others, rather than piling on with blame and accusations? Can we just take a minute and think about the grace that has been offered to us, before we try to deny this same grace to someone else?
It was only the grace of God through the blood of Jesus Christ that saved me and many of you. If you have not accepted this free gift and relished in the grace that is offered, do it today! It will make a difference!
