Pastor John,
About 10 years ago, Jesus let me know that there is no excuse for not doing the will of God, even if someone else does not. Even If people truly believe in their hearts that they have been done wrong, God still holds them accountable for her response to the wrong they think they have suffered; that is, for the spiritual direction they choose afterward. A story from Matthew 15 illustrates this.
When that Canaanite woman in the book of Matthew 15 pleaded for help for her demon-possessed daughter, Jesus told her, to paraphrase, “It is not good to pass out God’s goodness to you dogs.” Now, that Canaanite woman then had to make a choice, but there was only one acceptable way that she could choose in response to what Jesus had just said to her, and she took it when she humbled down even lower. That woman was created to ask Jesus for help. She was also created to be called a dog that day and then to choose, as she did, the one acceptable response after it happened. From what God showed me, I believe that woman would have to answer to God if she showed up at the Final Judgment having not received that healing for her daughter. That healing was her destiny – if she made the right choice. Her walking away from what she was created for was not an option, not one that God would accept, anyway. I have seen others, in a sense, be called a dog (or think they have been), and then think they are justified to choose a way other than the way of truth. But we are not allowed to do that. There is not another way that leads to eternal life.
That is what Jesus was showing me then, a decade ago: no matter what happens, I am responsible for doing the will of God. If someone errs along the way, and does me wrong, God will sort that out. There just isn’t an excuse for me to do wrong because of who He is and the way He loves each of us, personally, all the way home.
God can touch everyone’s heart right now who had made the wrong choice, and fix them. He did it for me.
Jerry