Why are mobs allowed to vandalize businesses and destroy property with very little punitive response? Why are law-breakers defended while lawenforcement is defamed and demeaned? Why is drunkenness excused as a “disease”? Why are some politicians allowed to get away with crimes that would quickly get the rest of us thrown in the slammer?
God clearly holds us all responsible,
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad”,
- II Corinthians 5:10.
God holds us accountable and he does so regardless of our race, nationality, economic status, education, family history, health or anything else. Should we not understand from this that we are to hold one another accountable as well?
Failure to hold one accountable is to say that they are inferior to those of us who are to be held accountable. To expect or allow uncivil behavior of anyone is to relegate them to an uncivil status as well as a second, and lower, standard of behavior. Such a double standard, as it is often applied, is blatantly racist and insidiously divisive.
Jesus came to reconcile us to one another and to God (see Ephesians 2:11-18 on that). Failure to hold one another accountable, however, naturally creates a divide between those considered responsible and those considered incapable of being held responsible.
Failure to hold one another responsible for criminal behavior guarantees that we will get more criminal behavior, just as Solomon wrote 3,000 years ago, "Because sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil”, Ecclesiastes 8:11.
Failure to hold individuals responsible is not being mercifully understanding, as some would have us to believe, but an evil that promotes racism, creates division and sows the seeds of escalating lawlessness.
Only a sense of personal responsibility will drive us to seek God. Believe no lie to the contrary.