' by his wounds you have been healed' 1 Peter 2:24

Whilst I don't subscribe to an Old Testament God of revenge and believe that  the most important and redeeming feature of Christianity is that Christ died to save us all from our sins past, present and future. I'm not totally comfortable with the new doctrine which is preached in some churches that teaches automatic forgiveness or rather sin with no consequences. This isn't what Jesus taught nor empirically do I see it as being true. Yes Jesus said time and again ' treat your neighbors like yourself' and forgive those who do you wrong but he also made it clear that there were inevitable ripples to be caused by casting the stone of sin.

If life has a lasting value and we are here for a purpose it must be that our lives give us a chance to learn and grow spiritually and that our interaction with our fellows is part of a grand design , we are all interlinked in a cosmic chain of cause and effect and that sometimes the most valuable lessons we learn are gained in the fire of pain and suffering. For us to believe that a bad action is instantly forgiven I think cheapens and degrades the whole Christian message. The world becomes nothing but a box of chocolates with soft centers and our life a warm bed of roses which experience tells us it most certainly isn't.

We can't just be allowed to do wrong otherwise the whole cycle becomes meaningless. If we look back on our lives time and again when bad things have happened and we take a painful knock , in hindsight  we realize what we couldn't see at the time that we became better individuals as a result. For sin to have any meaning in a world which should be governed by love it must act as a signpost along the road that points to something better. What happens if you ignore a sign post your car falls into the ditch otherwise there is no point in the signpost in the first place. God does ultimately give us forgiveness if we ask but surely we would only ask if we had knowledge of the fact that we needed it in the first place. Hence the inevitability and blessing of the potholes along the road of life.

Galle, Sri Lanka