“The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the
father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son‘s
iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the
wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself” (Ezek.18:20)
Hey
Gang: The Japanese have a unique law in
their canon of laws, ‘If you are sitting at a stop light and someone plows into
your rear, the plower is only liable for ninety percent of the guilt.’ Their rationale for this law is- if you were
not there or had been one minute later in getting there, the accident would not
have occurred.
That brought
to mind another story that I have compiled in my archives from my air traffic
control, involving a pilot. While in the
process of landing His aircraft he encountered a sheer cross-wind that drove
his aircraft into the ground. As he was exiting the crashed plane, the
emergency crew arrived and asked the pilot what happened. His response, “I don’t know I just got here
myself!”
God said to
Adam, have you eaten from the forbidden fruit?
His response, “The woman WHOM YOU
HAVE GIVEN ME, she gave me from the tree, and I ate”. God said to Eve, what have you done and she
responded “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Gen. 3:9-13).
The blaming
mentality became a weakness in all of mankind ever since. Adam blamed Eve for taking of the forbidden
fruit, Eve blamed the serpent. Saul
blamed the people for sparing the best of the animals instead of utterly
destroying them, according to God’s commands (I Samuel 15:8-15). In Ezekiel 18 the children of Judah blamed
their ancestors for the sins they themselves committed.
Today, some even blame God for circumstances
that they have brought upon themselves.
Because of
our sinful tendencies, we do not want to take responsibility for our own
actions. We feel justified in pushing
our accountability on someone or something else. In our pride we do not like to admit fault Do we not want people to think we are
sinless, even perfect? To that I plead guilty,
Lord! How often have we justify ourselves by
saying, “It’s not my fault”? Or what is the first thing we tend to do when
we commit a grievous error? – look for something or someone to blame it
on.
The Bible is
clear that when we stand before God, we will not be able to blame any other
person or thing for our actions: “For we
must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive
the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good
or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). We are
accountable for all the choices we make or have made.
Paul put it
this way: “For we know that the Law is
spiritual, but I am, of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for
I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very things I
hate” (Rom. 7:14-15). Again, I plead
guilty!
Paul goes on
and gives us the good news: “Wretched
man that I am! Who will set me free from
the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
(Rom. 7:24-25a). The point: Let us
humbly take responsibility for the wrongs that we have done, instead of playing
the blame game. Keep in mind to err is
human; to blame it on somebody else is even more human. Choose to ask
forgiveness from God and others and be set free!
Blessings,
Gramps
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