-Things Don’t Just Happen

“Behold, all souls are Mine;… the soul who sin shall die.” –Ezekiel 18:4

When salmon travel hundreds of miles up the rivers and streams to spawn where they were hatched, they act on instinct. In a sense, they are driven by an uncontrollable force. People, on the other hand, are different. We cannot blame instinct for our actions. We are responsible.

A convict who escaped execution through a last-minute decision of the Supreme Court considers human conduct and criminal instinct the same. Referring to the murders he committed, he said, “Things just happen.” He apparently thinks some kind of force was responsible for his pulling the trigger and killing two people.

More than 2,500 years ago, some Israelites said essentially the same thing. They quoted a proverb that placed the blame for their sins on their ancestors (Ezek. 18:2). But Ezekiel told them they were all wrong. He said that a good man will not be punished for the sins of wicked son. Neither will a godly son be punished for the sin of the evil father.

No matter what our situation, we are responsible for what we do. We might as well stop making excuses for our sins and take the first step in exercising individual responsibility: acknowledge our guilt and then put our trust in Jesus Christ.

Many people excuse their own foolishness by calling it fate.  

-Scapegoating

“Then the whole congregation… complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.” –Exodus 16:2

A worker in a law enforcement agency told of father who made a scapegoat of his son by blaming him for their family conflicts. Although the man and his wife had been fighting for years, the told his son, “If I leave you and your mother, it would be your fault.” Then the father died suddenly from a stroke, the mother accused her son of having caused his father’s death. The boy was devastated.

Blaming others for our problems is not only unjust and cruel, it’s displeasing to the Lord. The children of Israel did this in the wilderness shortly after their deliverance from the land of Egypt. When food and water were short, they panicked and blamed Moses and Aaron for getting them into their predicament. They made scapegoat of their leaders. Yet God mercifully overlooked their lack of faith and unfair criticism of His servants in those two incidents. Later, though, when Israelites continued to complain, He judged them severely.

Scapegoating can do great damage. Instead of looking for someone else to blame for our problems, we need to analyze our situation, acknowledge our failures, and ask God for forgiveness and help.

“In speaking of a person’s fault, do not forget of your own; remember, those with home of glass should never throw a stone.” – Anon

We won’t get closer to God by passing judgment on others.

-The Prism Vision

“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes.” –Proverbs 21:2

In an experiment, researchers fitted people with special prismatic glasses that made things appeared upside down, straight lines appear curved, and sharp outlines seem fringed with colour. Within just a few days the subjects reported that the unnatural shapes, tinted edges, and inverted landscapes gradually disappeared. The world began to appear normal again. Their brains had overcome false data coming through lenses. This adaptability in the physical realm is indeed a blessing.

Proverbs suggested that the mind doesn’t function well in the spiritual realm. In fact, we sinners whose deepest imaginations are evil. Our thought-life produces a world of illusions. We thing of our selves as pure, when we are guilty before God. That is why people shift the responsibility for their behavior to environment or to faulty upbringing. They fail to see their own rebellion and selfishness and imagine themselves to be innocent victims of circumstance. In this way they justify thoughts, feelings and actions that are obviously sinful. Their way is right in their own eyes.

As Christians, we should be aware of the deceptive nature of our hearts and allow the Holy Spirit to correct our vision through a  knowledge of God’s word.

The Bible offers corrective lenses to sin-blinded eyes.   

-When Silence Is Golden

“There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and destroy. Who are you to judge another?”  – James 4:12   

The 17^th century French church-man said, “It is often our imperfection that make us reprove the imperfection of others; a sharp-sighted self-love of our own which cannot pardon the self-love of others.”

Sometimes our own faults and imperfections make us see faults in others that don’t even exist. A woman complained that her neighbours windows were always dirty. One day a visitor encouraged her to wash her own windows. She followed the advice and exclaimed, “I don’t believe it. As soon as I washed my windows, my neighbor must have cleaned hers too. Look at them shine.”

Criticism blinds us to the good that others accomplish. A man who built a drinking tap in the public drew derogatory comments from an art critic about it’s design. Though somewhat hurt, the builder asked, “Is anyone drinking from it?” The builder was happy to learn that the tap, even dough the critic didn’t like it’s design, it was doing it’s job and doing it well.

Instead of calling attention to others’ imperfections, we should examine ourselves. And instead of judging others, we should look for the good in them and love them in spite of their faults.

When criticizing, don’t forget: God is listening.

-I’m To Blame

“Ahab… tore his clothes and put sackcloth on his body, … and about mourning.” -1 Kings 21:27

John and Joe stole some money, but they reacted differently when confronted with the evidence. John broke down immediately, confessed his guilt, and offered to repay the money. But Joe refused to take any responsibility and blamed his companion. Later, with his parents supporting him, Joe claimed he was forced into this conduct because some of the young people in the church had never accepted him.

People who try to cover their sins will not prosper, but those who confess and forsake them find mercy (Proverbs 23:13). Many people never realize that they become their own worst enemies by blaming others instead of facing up their own faults.  

In 1 Kings 21, King Ahab wanted a vineyard belonging to Naboth, but the owner refused to sell it. So Ahab’s wife had Naboth executed. Although, Ahab merely allowed her to use his name in signing the orders, he didn’t blame his wife when confronted with his evil deed. Instead, he acknowledged his crime, express grief, accepted responsibility, repented, and received a merciful reprieve.

Whenever we do wrong, we are wise to face up to it and ask God to forgive us. We will be better people when we learn to say, “I’m to blame.”

Only those willing to take blame can ever be trusted with responsibility.

-Hasty Conclusions

“Judge not, that you be not judged.” –Matthew 7:1

It’s easier to jump to negative conclusions about people than it is to assume the best about them. But the faults we see in others are usually a reflection of our own.

Bishop Potter “was sailing for Europe on one of the great trans-Atlantic Ocean liners. When he we on board, he found that another passenger was to share the cabin with him. After going to see the accommodations, he came up to the purser’s desk and inquired if he could leave his gold watch and valuables in the ship’s safe. He explained that the ordinarily he never availed himself for that privilege, but he had been to his cabin and had met a man who was to occupy the other berth. Judging from his appearance, he was afraid that he might not be a very trustworthy person. The purser accepted the responsibility for the valuables and remarked, ‘It all right, Bishop, I’ll be glad to care of them for you. The other man has been up here and left his for the same reason’” (H. A. Ironside, Illustration of Bible Truth).

We need to make sure that we have all the facts before we speak and guard ourselves against making snap judgments about people. The standard we use to judge people will be used to us.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct 

-Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

“But the people took of the plunder… to sacrifice to the Lord.” -1 Samuel 15:21      

 Friends from the police, the MTTD, was discussing the following list of statements made by motorists trying to excuse their accidents:

• The other car collided with mine without giving warning of it’s intentions.
• A pedestrian hit me and went under my car.
• Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don’t have.
• I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment.
• The pedestrian has no idea of which direction to run, so I run over him.

These excuses show how prone we are to invade responsibility for our wrong actions, but weak attempts to justify mistakes will not absolve us of blame.

We also make excuses when we fail to do God’s will. If we could view our rationalization from His perspective, we would see that they are as ridiculous as the statements of those motorists. Saul told God that the people would use the animals they had taken from the Amalekites as sacrifices. But he was merely covering up for disobeying God, who had told him to destroy everything.

If we seek every way possible to do God’s will, we won’t need to make excuses.

Reasons that sound good aren’t always good sound reasons.

THE END

                                                                                                 R. K. Apla-kweku.