This is one of the hardest things for me as a Christian to come to grips with, I should believe that all people are redeemable, but I can not help but think that some are born demon spawn and have hearts as black as the deepest depths of Hell.
If the vic was black and the perp was white there would be blood in the streets. You’ve gotta understand the minorities have a perfect right to be angry at whites, and to want to cut them up, just not the other way round. If you are white you supposed to hate youself. In fact you supposed to even off youself.
Same here.
Sin can be forgiven, but the consequences remain.
And require payment in some form.
The best thing to do is to pray for everyone involved in such horrible circumstances, including the criminal, and with regular practice of this one comes to find a surprising amount of compassion for anyone really. This is a gift of God of course, as all goodness eventually is, not of your own effort.
I’ll probably get flamed by someone for daring to suggest we should also pray for criminals, even ones as cold hearted and apparently unrepentant as this guy, even though that’s what Scripture says we should do. We are to literally “love your enemy” that doesn’t mean just repeating the phrase and not living it in some way. Jesus was and is the greatest teacher and many of his teachings are radical. If one really takes them seriously, one will precisely find at a certain point in life saying to oneself “but He can’t have meant THAT!” Yeah, He did.
If one finds oneself saying that about a particular teaching, believing “that’s not what it means”, and it’s practical real world application, especially His teachings about love and forgiveness, that’s a good sign it means one is on the right track. Just need to take the next step and do what you realize He wants you to do. He didn’t teach things that were easy to live. They are simple teachings but they are not easy. There’s a difference.
So yeah, pray for the family, for the victim (if you’re Catholic) but also pray for the criminal. The benefits are great, for you. That’s what all of His teachings are for anyway, for our benefit. It really does work. Loving your enemy in a real way. Praying for them, that they not only “find Jesus”, but also literally have a better life than you, here and hereafter. Yes that’s what He meant by “loving your enemy”. The funny thing is though if you really live like this you’ll receive “a hundred fold” of benefit now, not just in the hereafter.
Just like anything that’s worth fighting for it’s hard. But the rewards are great. (And I’m not talking about financial gain, the so called “prosperity gospel” is Satanic).
Some people are born victims of horrible abuse and neglect, and possible drug and alcohol abuse in utero before they are even born; and many like this are born into drug/alcohol/child rape and chaos, and end up giving it back to society. We may not be able to save individuals like this who commit evil acts; but seeing the social disorder they come from must urge us to continue sharing the gospel, working the Great Commission and trying to prevent this from happening to other individual children down the road.
These past 60 years of liberals trying to force a form of virtue on society without God are now coming home to roost.
There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
—2 Timothy 3:1-5