First of all, let me say something about Christianity. Christianity is founded on the idea of grace. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, and whoever believes in him shall not perish but will have everlasting life." John 3:16. There you have it. God will forgive you and it's free. Just believe it. That is God's grace. He was willing to forgive our sins past, present, and future and love us just as we are. He forgave the thief dying on the cross right next to him, and he will forgive you too.
The best argument I can offer for believing in the grace of God is to look at the alternative. When you look around the world today, you will see a world of "un-grace." For example, think about forgiveness for a moment. What is the alternative? Well, I guess that would be a world where no one forgives anyone right? In a world like this, "un-forgiveness" lives and breaths. When you look around the world and even here in the U.S. that's what you are seeing more and more. "Un-forgiveness" Essayist Lance Morrow said, "a Newtonian law comes into play: for every atrocity there must be an equal and opposite atrocity." Does that sound familiar to you? Probably, if you watch the news.
The problem with getting revenge is that it never really settles the score. What's done is done. Forgiveness may be unfair and I suppose by definition it really is unfair. But it does provide a way to stop the train of revenge moving down the tracks. What we really need is a national climate of forgiveness. Phillip Yancey wrote in his wonderful book What's so Amazing About Grace, "Politics deals with externals: borders, wealth, racism, crimes. Authentic forgiveness deals with the evil in a person's heart, something for which politics has no cure."
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