Examine myself? Take a “fearless moral inventory?”
Awesome, let me at it!
- Then I can fearlessly and humbly take part in communion (I Corinthians 11:28).
- Faithful are the wounds of a friend (Proverbs 27:6); rebuke a wise man and he will be wiser still (Proverbs 9:8,9).
- If you think you know, you do not know as you ought to know, which is that you do not know (I Corinthians 8:2 ).
- In the multitude of counselors there is safety (Proverbs 11:14, 24:6).
- By examining ourselves we avoid the judgment of others and of God (I Corinthians 11:31,32).
Well, that’s how we would consider it if we were sane and thought like Christians.
However, most people never examine themselves, either not caring to see what a mess they are, or assuming that what you don’t see or don’t know can’t hurt you or others.
The truth is always that each of us is, in fact, the chiefest of sinners, the worst of all time. This truth terrifies people because they believe that WORST=HOPELESS. They do not understand grace. They first deny the truth and then, if that does not work, make excuses and blame others.
They ultimately wind up blaming God.
At some level they must realize that no one believes an excuse (except the excuser themselves)! The listener is thinking, “Methinks, thou doest protest too much.”(Shakespeare) The louder the excuse and the longer maintained, the clearer it is to everyone else that the excuse holds no water, but the more the excuser believes their own story.
Because they can’t make anyone accept the excuse, the excuser must try to make others act as if they accept it. They act as if it is worse to doubt their excuse than it is to do the wrong in the first place.
“Don’t you trust me?” NO! (See my blog on Trust You?)
Our society seems to accept that it is OK to sin but it is terrible to point out to the sinner that they are sinning!
If they operated a lethal vehicle in a life threatening way, that is just fine, but if you blow your horn at them, that is terrible.
If you continue to point out that their actions were just plain wrong and their excuse holds no water, they might explode in anger, point out “you’re not so great yourself,” (True but I am not the one denying it.) or resort to, “you are right, I will just go kill myself right now.”
When children are careless and injure another they think that saying, “I did not intend to hurt them” makes it OK.
Maybe the goal is to go through life aware of others and not hurt them in the first place. If we accept excuses for ourselves and others, we just increase the frequency and intensity of our sin and theirs by thinking, “see, we can sin and then get off by blaming someone or something.”
Our race got off to a bad start with Eve and Adam blaming God for their own sins. That did not work then and it does not work now.
“Lord, help me to not make excuses and to help others see how pointless they are.“
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