Amplify’d from www.disturbedchristians.com
Is forgiveness truly possible in the age of Facebook?
For the first time ever, everything is recorded. That picture you took in college before you were a Christian drinking beer at a party, wall updates about things you might have did that were questionable, even political statements. It's all there. Forever.
Hitting the delete button no longer means delete; it means erased from your memory, perhaps. But it does not mean removed from the friend of a friend who hit "like" to your update, or the person you only sort of knew who decided to post your picture on their personal blog.
Once there was a time when we could start over—even if it meant moving away to a place where friends didn't know you. That's no longer. It all comes back to haunt us.
Salvation used to be this powerfully moving experience—a wave of joy overfilled you as you thought about everything from before removed—washed away and your sins are forgive. And it still is. Until you go home, log onto the Internet and see your sins are still there.
When you become born again, there's that feeling of joy and excitement, and when you come down from the high the healing begins; in those delicate moments after salvation, God begins to work in you and shape who you are and who you will be.
There is no baptism on Facebook. There is no way to wash away sins.
The challenges for the modern Christian are more difficult than any age before us, because unlike Christians yesterday: our sins are forgiven, our sins are remembered. Our healing period is plagued with reminders that can make healing more difficult, and our old self is forever out there to remind us, and perhaps entice us, of the old ways.
Is it fair for a church to check the Internet history of someone they are considering hiring? By the laws of man, yes. It shouldn't matter what someone did yesterday, but for some, the fact that it's out there means that it does.
The Bible teaches forgiveness, but that doctrine becomes much harder to follow when it's so easy to see just what a person needs to be forgiven of. That healing that comes after salvation--the one that's between you and God--it's just not the same. When people know what your sins were, they want to be the judge of how you should heal; somehow the experience of salvation becomes a lot less personal when Internet looms over us.
There are now two people who duel for your life. God—the one who fights for you. And the Internet—the one who remembers you—the one who reminds you—the one who can so easily control your life.
I'd like to say there's a work around in all of this, but there's not. As Christians, it is our responsibility to help a person through that healing period, but that can be hard when sins never truly go away from man.
As the Internet expands, it's only going to get smarter and remember more. For Christians, that means it's only going to get harder for forgiveness. We will accept what we did, and we will hand it over to God who will forgive us; and then we will face the Facebook--accepting that what we handed over to God was only the start of the healing; the real healing begins when we consider that what we have handed over can only be forgiven, not forgotten. Part of forgiveness of sins has always been acceptance of them; but it's a lot easier to accept what you were ten years ago when you don't have to see pictures that remind you of the fact.
It's the age of Facebook--God help us all.
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/j14p
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