My question is in response to "I'm Sorry-ish”.  I understand why it's important to apologize when you have wronged others, but what if they are the kind of person who would prefer to "sweep it under the rug" vs. being confronted with it and put in an uncomfortable position?

Sincerely,
Saving Face

Dear Saving Face,

That post was dealing with someone that wanted an apology; the situation you bring up would be entirely different.  1 Cor 13:5 says that “love does not seek its own”, and 1 Cor 8:1 points out that “love edifies”.  The point of apologizing to someone is to rectify a situation and make things better.  The idea is that you are bringing resolution to a damaged relationship, reconciling by humbling yourself to apologize (Matt 5:24).  However, if the person has “swept the issue under the rug”, there is no need for resolution… the situation is already resolved.

[This question is a follow-up to “A Thanksgiving To Remember”]

Why is it so important to apologize to others?  I know it is important to apologize to God… but other people when they do you wrong also?  Why can't others just forget about it, sweep it under a rug so to speak?

Sincerely,
Get Over It

Dear Get Over It,

It is important because God says it is important (Lk 17:4).  Confessing our sins to one another is part of the growth process that God expects us to go through (Jas 5:16).  Heb 10:24 says that we need to consider one another… and that is part of what apologizing is.  An apology shows that you have considered the feelings of the other person after you have wronged them.  Admitting we are wrong is a sign of maturity and humility (Matt 23:12).  Love seeks the benefit of the other person (1 Cor 13:5) – apologizing helps those we have hurt to heal.

If I have denied God to someone, and I am a christian, does it mean I will not spend everlasting life in heaven?

Sincerely,
Mum’s The Word

Dear Mum’s The Word,

A single act of denial will not condemn you to hell, but a lifestyle of denying Christ will.  Christ warns against being someone who will not confess His name before mankind (Matt 10:32-33).  Christ teaches us to be courageous and not timid with our faith (2 Tim 1:7).  Peter denied Christ three times (Lk 22:34) in a single night, but Peter also later repented and changed his ways (Matt 26:75).  It was a sin for you to deny God.  Repent of that sin, chart a new course of brave faith, and seek God’s forgiveness (Jas 5:15).  If you draw near to God, He will faithfully draw near to you (Jas 4:8).

     Why would God allow the torture of innocent children?

Sincerely,
Appalled

Dear Appalled,

This world is full of all sorts of disease, pain, violence, and strife – but God didn’t cause those things; sin did.  All bad things are a result of sin.  When God made the world, He placed mankind in the Garden of Eden and gave us a joyously blissful existence in that paradise.  Who caused the pain?  We did.  It is sin that has brought all of the death, disease, decay, pain, suffering, troubles, and heartaches into our world.  We all, in varying degrees, are reaping the benefits of a world with sin in it.  Sickness is a consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden of Eden.  One of the curses of their sin was that we all must face our own mortality – life is finite.  Sickness, disease, and pain are a part of the human existence.

Sadly, this is true even for our children. When God gave us freewill, He gave us the right to cause problems for ourselves and others, and if He simply removed all the consequences for our actions, He would be removing our freedoms as well.  The flip-side to this is that all children go to heaven, so after a child dies, God immediately comforts them on the other side.
 God gives mankind the freedom to make decisions, but He also has the wisdom to know how those choices will affect the future (Job 12:13).  God planned before the foundation of the world to save us by sending His own Son to die (Eph. 1:3-4).  Even though He isn’t responsible for our choices, God sent the perfect cure. This world isn’t fair – if it were, it would be heaven.  Instead, we live in a fallen world where man has been exiled from paradise.  This world is not our home; Christians await a better world where the most innocent don’t face such things. (Heb 11:16).

If our population is growing at such an expansive rate, why does God let so many more people die spiritually?  He knows the gospel will not reach all those people, so why bring more to the world?

Sincerely,
So Many Lost

Dear So Many Lost,

God gives us the freedom to choose to live or choose to sin; the fact that we all choose to sin is not His fault (Rom 5:12).  Your question comes down to one issue – if God knew that so many people would do bad things, how come we are still to blame?  God knows our days upon this earth, but He also gives us the freewill to shape various aspects of the world that we live in.  Just because God has knowledge of how you and I will behave does not mean that He causes our behavior to happen in a certain way.  Foreknowledge is not the same as causation.  A doctor may know that a patient is going to die of cancer, but that doesn’t mean the doctor gave them cancer.  God gives mankind the freedom to make decisions, but He also has the wisdom to know how those choices will affect the future (Job 12:13).  God, having the wisdom to see that freewill also meant that people would have the freedom to choose bad things, doesn’t mean that He is to blame for our choices.  Furthermore, God didn’t just sit idly with His foreknowledge.  God planned before the foundation of the world to save us by sending His own Son to die (Eph. 1:3-4).  Even though He isn’t responsible for our choices, God sent the perfect cure.  A cure that can be found in the Bible – a book that is available in over 2,400 languages and distributed by the billions across the globe.