The new Cephas Hour talks about forgiveness. And not hating the sinner. Hating the sin is an entirely different matter.

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An expression that occasionally pops up in pop culture is “the Mandela Effect.” It is a phenomenon where a large number of people who are otherwise unconnected to one another remember an event, be it an artistic endeavor or a historic occasion, that, in fact, never happened. An example of this is the comedian Sinbad and numerous people swearing they saw him playing a genie in a movie named “Shazam,” which, in reality, he never made.

While such examples are, at worst, a mild embarrassment, the Mandela Effect can be destructive. For example, there are many ways to offend someone. One way is to lie to or about them intentionally. Another is rooted in far more benign soil, but it’s hurtful all the same. It’s not getting your facts straight.

Perhaps you were the victim of wrong information. Or, you reacted to something you thought you saw or heard, but in reality, you were working off an assumption based on incomplete, incorrectly interpreted, or deliberately false information passed along by others. In either case, you said or did something that hurt someone else, and no matter how many times or how sincerely you apologize, the damage is done.

Forgiveness can be challenging, and an offending party has no right to demand forgiveness. All we can do is ask and hope the other person is gracious. If they’re not, you can’t blame them. But we can still hope.

Somewhere between the brokenness of “I can do nothing“ and the arrogance of “I can do everything“ lives the stereophonic reality of “without Him, we can do nothing” and “I can do all things through Christ.” “I need thee every hour” isn’t just a hymn; it’s a way of life, a necessary status of realizing our self-helplessness while simultaneously reaching out for facilitation of that which is needed to function.

This is why Christians so deeply aggravate progressives. Not only do we remind them they are not the God they don’t believe exists, but we also refuse to hate people as they do based on differing ideologies. Although, in accuracy’s interest, when it comes to progressives, it is more accurate to call it as it is. Namely, differences based on their idolatry of worshipping the mythical state and collectivism, in which all are equal save our “leaders” residing in luxury’s lap. Because, as Orwell succinctly put it, some are more equal than others.

The most insidious and hideous stereotypes are not the ones people make of others based on their race, color, creed, gender, etc. They are abominable, but they are not the worst. No, the most insidious and hideous stereotypes are the ones people make out of themselves based on their race, color, creed, gender, and so on.

The word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword. It cuts through the false veneer of skin pigmentation and reveals man’s fallen nature. It slices through the soft bigotry of low expectations and declares that all have fallen short of God’s glory. It destroys false pride and the baseless lies of both racial superiority and false victimization. As Paul wrote, “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”

The true believer understands what Jude meant when he wrote, “Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear — hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” Hatred is not telling someone that if they don’t change their ways, they are risking spending eternity separated from God. Hatred is when you see somebody who if they don’t change their ways is risking eternity separated from God … and you don’t tell them.