WHY WE NEVER GIVE UP ON ANYONE

For every ten people who bug the tar out of us, there are ten who are equally bugged by us.  We have such a knack to turn a blind eye to our own offenses.  This allows us, of course, to operate with a more critical eye toward the errors of "their" ways.

When we begin a committed walk with God, one of the first assignments He issues is that we receive individual crosses to carry.  This is not a suggestion.  It is a requirement.

The church's reputation today sags because we outspokenly have powerful convictions; but we do not have the endurance power to take offenses while deeply loving the offenders.  Thus, our crosses aren't real; but are mere themes from which church hymns are developed.

Humanity is equipped to never give up on anyone.  There is an inbuilt free-space afforded each of us that is designed to believe that even the edgiest of acquaintances can find our acceptance.  We surely need it from them.  It is called forgiveness.

Sneerers and jeerers of Jesus day pleaded for him to come down off of his cross and duke it out with them.  He refused because he was on mission to die for them.  They had no hope without him.  They needed him.  But they didn't need him to write them off.  They needed him to be maturer than they.

Jesus is different.  He would not give up the hope that even his enemies would one day pick up their crosses in His name as converted disciples.  These would be found to have new mission.  Even rigid and rebellious Saul of Tarsus is now known as the infamous Apostle Paul.  Never give up on anyone.

Never give up on anyone...especially yourself.

Failure can either sink us or build our determination.  We can pout in frustration or learn in incremental steps toward the endurability as found in Jesus.  Never give up on anyone including yourself.

One of the things I treasure most about knowing God is His remarkable "Start Over" policy.  We are called to begin life again day by day.  We can and we get to.

We never give up on anyone, including ourselves, because forgiveness which flows from the cross is now the identical process which flows from the crosses we carry. These crosses are not jewelry around a neck.  They are sufferings, deeply wounding injuries, so that those of us who don't deserve a second chance get that one and sixty-nine more...endlessly.

Jesus' bold and daring rescue of us, very personally, is why we will never give up one another.  Jesus absorbed the guilt...of each of us.  We will never give up....on anyone.