As a parent and pastor I’ve heard just about every excuse imaginable. But what troubles me more than that is the fact that I’ve made my share of excuses–ok, maybe more than my share, but you get the point. Sadly, most folks don’t see the seriousness of this sin–“Sin”? Yes indeed! Excuse making is sinful and it should be treated as any other sin–confessed and forsaken.

I just finished reading an article by Jeremy Pierre, entitled “The Old Man and Me”, that reminded me of the seriousness of this matter. I pass it on, in part, to you with the hope that it will help you think of excuses in a new light:

Excuse Making and Fear of Failure

This process can become so automatic to our thinking that we become like walking excuses, people who spend their days setting up rickety defenses against possible failure. But the only thing these defenses protect is inactivity. A teenager sees how difficult it is to be any good at the guitar, so he just plays video games instead. A young professional sees how much more demanding management is, so he sticks with his temp position.

While excuse-making is fatal to vocational accomplishments, far more tragic is its effect on the pursuit of obedience to God. Just doing what comes naturally is far easier than laboring to do the unnatural demands of the gospel. We are all too quick to point to reasons why we will fail.

“There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the streets!”

Do you know to whom the Proverbs attribute this hyperbolic excuse for inactivity? Not the fearful person, but the sluggard (Prov. 22:13; cf. 26:13-16).

“Master, I knew you to be a hard man . . . so I was afraid.”

Do you know what the Master called this servant in response to his fainthearted excuse for inactivity? Not fearful, as the servant had self-identified himself, but “wicked and slothful” (Matt. 25:24-30).

Fear of Failure and Love of Ease

These are strong words, and I don’t particularly like them. It puts a finger right on a tender strand in my nature. I pre-excuse myself because I fear failure; but my fear of failure is often not much more than my love of ease and comfort. We could all say that what we often sense as fear of failure is the subtle desire to take it easy. We have a certain distaste for difficulty.

Consider the anxiety of addressing unhealthy relational patterns in your marriage; it’s much easier to be satisfied with the adequately long periods of cease-fire. Even the pursuit of God in hearty prayer can be an intimidating prospect; far easier to maintain a sporadic, occasional prayer life. In all of these situations, we can be so focused on why things won’t work that we end up protecting our natural distaste for spiritual labor.

The apostle Peter had no room for such intimidation and half-effort in the Christian life, but encouraged active determination (1 Pet. 1:13ff). Likewise, Paul says that Christians run so as to win, not half-heartedly finding reasons why victory is unlikely (1 Cor. 9:24-27). In other words, it’s not our job to find reasons why we won’t be able to obey, but rather to determine that we will.

The Resolve of Another

I am not saying that the Christian life is simple, mind-over-matter determination. Rather, Christians humbly acknowledge we live in an age of incompletion (Phil. 3:12-13) but nevertheless are undaunted in our efforts (Phil. 3:14) because Jesus Christ has already guaranteed our completion (Phil. 3:12, 20-21). And how can Jesus guarantee this? Because he was resolved first.

“But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened til it be accomplished!” (Luke 12:50)

“Nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42).

The tenacity of this young Galilean was far greater than any old man on any sea. I hope one of our privileges in heaven will be to listen back on Jesus’ internal monologue as he faced the waters of God’s wrath. We will celebrate it as the masterpiece of the ages. Imagine how wondrous it will be to hear the private thought life of a man resolved to obey in dependent love the very One who was to plunge him under the seas of death.

And we who are in Christ don’t just imitate that determination. We share in it.--THINK ABOUT IT!

As we wrestle with the difficulties of life, more and more we are forced to look beyond the borders of our own country. In other words, we must look at the “Big Picture”. That’s why the word globalism has become so popular. Perhaps it has always been that way, but I had not noticed it so much until now. Being raised in and sheltered by the most powerful nation on earth I’ve always had a sense of security, not known to most people on earth. However, the events of recent years and what appears to be the “changing of the guard” concerning national supremacy has put all of us on edge.

We are beginning to see that we aren’t self-sufficient (we can’t even pay our bills), safe from outsiders, nor without the need of aid from others. We certainly aren’t the cure-all for all the ills of the world. Now, we even have to hitch a ride from Russia to visit the Space Station since we shut down our space program. No longer can we talk about hardly anything without taking other nations into consideration.

This is where we must be very careful. Globalism isn’t the solution to our problems. The “United Nations” creates more problems than it solves. Yet, to some degree nearly all our government leaders embrace the view that a utopia can only come from a joint effort of earth’s many nations. But, there is another perspective from which this matter must be viewed. It is the only perspective that enables us to actually see the root of the problem and the remedy for it.

Retired Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow wrote the following words in an article entitled, “The New Age–It Stinks”. Carefully read these words:

I have lived through the embryonic development of the new age. I have observed the satanic transforming of our society into a morally filthy cesspool. I have witnessed the God-given liberties of the people being washed away by political hacks, and the productiveness of the human soul being transformed to sloth and disgusting moral degeneracy by educated idiots of the socialist ilk. In short I have had a very good look at the new age, and it stinks! And so do those who have created it…

HERE’S THE STORY

Now hear this – you are living under an autocracy…yes you are! I don’t care if you are a Christian of one kind or another, a Hindu, a Buddhist, an Islamist, a believer in Shinto, a follower of Sikhism, a believer that the Dalai Lama is a god, or if you reject the entire lot of these as an atheist. You are in fact the property of and subject to one God; the God of the Universe – the Almighty God who created you and the environs in which you exist. Each nation, be it democratic, authoritarian, primitive or enlightened – though such might like to think that they are sovereign and independent – is subject to the will of the Supreme God over all.

My friend you were not spawned by a love-sick amoeba that oozed from a stinking primordial soup; you were created by an unlimited omnipotent omniscient God. Ach! One might say…you’re full of it; I am the progeny of my mother and my father two human beings that inherited the genetic ability to procreate by an evolutionary process. This might seem on the surface to be a benignly innocuous way of thinking, but it is not it has led to a dangerous tinkering with God’s immutable laws. God created mankind from the dust of the earth and blew breath into his nostrils; man was made of the earth upon which we tread and woman was made of man.

After the creation of man and then women God created the other creatures of the earth, which He allowed Adam and Eve to name. By His design His living creations were inhabited of a phenomenal genetic code of unapproachable brilliance that proscribed the mixing of species and provided for a propagation of the various species by a coded ability that allowed each species to re-create its own kind. Men are now meddling with this ordination;— God is perfect in every way; men are execrably imperfect and fallible. There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death…genetic meddling is going to wreak havoc upon the human species and all other living organisms upon this earth; such devastation has already begun to gather momentum.

WHO IS IN CHARGE AND CONTROL?

Well now we have established, at least in my mind, that God owns us body and spirit. We have further established that as His property we are subject absolutely to His will and to His laws, this even though His will and His laws might conflict with our desires from the flesh. Remember now…what men think as to how God should run the Universe doesn’t count as men do not own the Universe, they don’t even own themselves. We will do as our maker and sovereign God wills or we will cease to exist, it is as simple as that. We are His property and if mankind becomes so filthy in its ways, so useless to God’s objectives, and so adamantly disobedient He will destroy the whole of it; He has demonstrated not only His ability, but His willingness to do so.

Fortunately for us God always provides an escape from an imminent retribution upon a recalcitrant people. Such a shelter was provided the antediluvians through Noah, but they rejected it. God promised Abraham that He would spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of ten righteous people, but ten righteous people could not be found among the iniquitous mass. Fortunately for you dear reader – and for me – God has provided shelter from the soon coming apocalyptic destruction of the world, and that shelter is the Lord Jesus Christ. Lip service and warm and fuzzy worship will not do it, faith must be of the heart. Our every desire must be His lordship and a rejection of the enticements of a fallen world. He is the way and the truth and the life.

THINK ABOUT IT!