Why Not?

I'm sure most of us are asking, "Why?" when we reflect on the senseless shootings and loss of life at Virginia Tech yesterday.  That was my first question. I quickly moved from that, though, to the one which serves as the title of this post, "Why not?"  Our culture assumes people are basically good or neutral and all we need is a little positive input and direction in order to be productive members of society.  God's word assumes we're born in sin and born as "enemies" of God.  That sounds so harsh.  The reality is while most of us will never carry out such a heinous crime as we saw on video from Virginia Tech, the capacity to do such things is within us all.  We're born with the propensity to do evil.  From our youngest days we're self-centered, self-willed and seek our own good.  Only by the grace of God does any society function.  John Calvin called it "general grace." It keeps us from destroying one another.  Unless, we move beyond that to the specific grace offered to us in Jesus Christ, we can expect headlines like yesterdays everyday. 

Some say the world is becoming more and more evil.  God's word tells us that in every era "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint." (Proverbs 29:18 NIV) When we fail to learn and live God's word and ways, the result is death, theft and destruction.  Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the victims.  As followers of Jesus they go out to the family of the shooter as well.  As followers of Jesus we must set ourselves to the task of sharing God's revelation first with our lives and then with our words.  Then the people around us will ask, "Why?.... Why do you live that way?"  There's no better door than that through which we can offer Jesus to them.