It’s easy to deny the truth. Especially when it’s painful. Especially when it’s right and I’m wrong. I want to run in the opposite direction. Away from the truth, so maybe then I won’t have to face it. The truth isn’t real if I don’t acknowledge it. Right? But what if I really don’t know the truth? What if the truth hasn’t been shared with me? What happens then?

She doesn’t believe in eternity. She says she thinks about what happens after death. But she doesn’t believe in an afterlife. Her husband is frightened to even think of it. They don’t know the truth about eternity. They’re living a life against God’s truth. And they don’t know it. Are they living a lie?

He says he’s a good person. He believes that being good is good enough. He doesn’t seem to think he needs God in his life, so he’s living life on his own terms. And he thinks that’s enough. Does he know that being good can send him to hell, because being good alone isn’t good enough for heaven. Only God knows his heart.

She says you love who you love. It doesn’t matter who. You just want to find someone to love. Someone who will love you. It doesn’t matter if a man loves another man. Or if a woman loves another woman. That’s what she says. I wonder if she know what God’s word says about that kind of love. If she does, she’s denying the truth.

How many people are there left in the world who can actually say they don’t know they are sinning against God?  How many?  Do they deny the truth?  Or have they never been told?

Do we acknowledge the truth even if it hurts? Do we follow the truth even if it isn’t popular or politically correct? Do we stand up for truth even though we may be persecuted? Can we honestly say we don’t know the truth?

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Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Luke 23:34

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When Jesus was arrested, the Roman soldiers were just doing their job. Oh. It’s easy to say that. Were they just doing what they were told? Or were they willing participants in his arrest and torture? I wonder if some of them followed him from a distance. I wonder if some believed his story. I wonder if they knew what they were getting themselves in for on that fateful night. Did they know they were taking down God Almighty? Would they have dared to arrest him had they known?

How could they not know what they were doing as they found him guilty of a crime he didn’t commit? Who is the guilty party here, anyway? They may have known the truth. They may not have. But those guards didn’t know they were part of God’s ultimate plan. They didn’t know what they didn’t know.

As Jesus hung on that cross, he asked his Father to forgive those who had tortured and crucified him. He begged for mercy for those who lied and found him guilty of a crime he didn’t commit. Instead of asking for punishment to fall on his accusers and abusers, he asked for God to rain down his mercy on their souls.

Heavenly Father, I pray that those who don’t know the truth or choose not to believe it will come to an understanding of the truth. Open their wills to seek and to know you. Penetrate their hearts with your love. Open their ears to hear the message of salvation. I ask that you will have mercy on their ignorance. They don’t know that you came to forgive them. To save them from their sins. I pray that the truth will set them free. Father, have mercy.

Friends, I realize that what you did to Jesus was done in ignorance. Acts 3:17