"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:8-9)
In his devotional book entitled New Morning Mercies: A Daily Gospel Devotional, Paul David Tripp has much to say about the tendency for all of us to be self-defensive when it comes to dodging blame for our own sins and short-comings. It seems to be our first instinct to accuse others of bad behavior while excusing ourselves from such scrutiny. Even Jesus addresses this issue with the well-known speck and log analogy found in Matthew 7:3. So what should we do when the Holy Spirit points out the hypocrisy of our denials of guilt? Tripp tells us about the problem and leaves us with a simple point to help us overcome this natural inclination to justify our own actions or words:
"It started in the garden of Eden, and we have been committed to it ever since. We all point the finger of blame and we all work to convince ourselves that the party to blame is not us. Adam pointed his finger at Eve, and Eve pointed her finger at the Serpent; neither one of them accepted blame. Yes, it is true; there have been generations of finger pointers ever since.
"You see, when you've done something wrong, it's not natural to look inside yourself for the cause. Sin makes us all shockingly self-righteous. It makes us all committed self-excusers... We all have very active inner lawyers, who rise to our defense in the face of any accusation or wrong.
"Because accepting blame is not natural, it takes rescuing, transforming grace to produce a humble, willing, broken, self-examining, help-seeking heart. Only divine grace can soften a person's heart. Only grace can cause you to quit pointing your finger and to run to your Redeemer for his forgiveness and delivering power... And if you have quit being defensive and are now willingly and humbly approachable, you know that transforming grace has visited you."
Guilty as charged!! Its so hard to read the truth about myself. Why is it so hard to accept that we do things wrong, we are human. In our effort to appear spotless and perfect we can't even look at ourselves as flawed. I am convicted by what Paul has to say, I hope we all are. I am going to try and practice turning my finger, hard as it may be, back toward me and just see what happens , maybe it won't be so bad, maybe I will learn to work at doing better, making better choices on the forefront if I take the blame on myself and let others IFC the book. Maybe I will even be a better friend? Thanks for the conviction Candy, thanks fir challenging us. Debbi
ReplyDeleteSo spells ng and grammar corrections I need Candy to edit before I press publish. I meant to say "if I take the blame on myself and let others off the hook". And the other correction is "thanks for challenging us". There instead of pointng my finger at spell check for messing up I took the blame on myself, it wasn't even that hard :-). Debbi
ReplyDeleteDebbi, you are a great role model for us, taking on the responsibility for typos! haha
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