Shame

One of the most rewarding things about following Jesus Christ is assurance that our sins are forgiven. This forgiveness is not something we earn. It is a gift from our Savior, that we receive when we acknowledge Him as our lord and follow His ways. The truth that Christ died for the sins of all makes Christians different from everyone else on Earth.

We won't spend eternity in Heaven because we are righteous nor because we earned our reward through our actions in this life. We will be rewarded because we acknowledge the redeeming truth from the lips of the Son of Man: ""I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die."

There is no shame in the world of Christians. Though I may sin and dismay the Creator in this life, my sins are washed away and I will be blameless on Judgment Day, because I have given my life to the Savior.

There is shame in the rest of the world. The world of Islam is built on a culture of shame and honor. Loss of honor is shameful. And no matter what you hear from advocates for Islam, there is no room in their world for the gift of grace we Christians have received. Jews strive for righteousness, and lament their shortcomings. Agnostics and atheists pursue honor and nobility, and know shame when their shortcomings are made public (well, those who don't hold public office seem to be able to be ashamed).

Where does shame come from for those who haven't embraced Christ? Shame is a normal human feeling when one thinks one should have behaved differently. It is particularly acute for many people when their shortcomings are made public. If you belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, and you hear the President of the United States tell you "Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world," you will hear an admission that the Great Satan erred and that its president just acknowledged his shame over that error.

What about pride? When you hear President Obama say, "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's," you will certainly hear the latter part of the sentence loud and clear, untroubled by the first part, and your Arab pride will swell.

Islam is a culture where the religious follow a false prophet (Matthew 24:10-11 "At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.") and the character of life is defined by a choice between shame and honor. It is shocking that a president who acknowledges he knows the Qur'an and claims to respect the culture of its adherents would deliver a speech without considering how it would be heard by Islamics.

Then again, if you have the messianic self-image that Barack Hussein Obama has made evident since he first appeared in the Illinois state legislature, you evidently know better than anyone else how to make friends with a Medieval culture bent on eradicating the culture of your nation. If you are Obama, you think Muslims - who know without any doubt that abortion is sinful - will overlook your history of defending the heinous practice of partial-birth abortion and hear your uplifting message of reconciliation between the United States and the Muslim world. You will be untroubled by the charging of interest on loans made in American banks, in violation of the tenets of Islam. You will ignore the films your political donors make that exploit and demean women and depict licentious behavior and the use of alcohol. The shame these behaviors rain down on you in the eyes of your audience means nothing to you.

Nor, if you are President Obama, will you be bothered to point out to the audience with justifiable pride the blood and treasure the United States has spent defending Muslims around the world - never once taking territory or treasure in return for this help.

And above all, you will not point out to your Muslim audience that the reason the United States is a safe place for 1.5 million adherents to their religion to live is that the government was founded on Christian principles.

There is hope for President Obama's soul. It is the hope available to all. Know and repent your error, ask God for forgiveness, and walk in Christ's footsteps. I am reliably informed it takes all three. Based on his behavior to date, he still has some distance to go.