What's Your Excuse?

We have to be so careful to recognize that while we are new creatures in Jesus Christ, we still live in this fallen world and we are in a process of transformation.   While we may have an inward desire to obey the Lord, there are forces that will keep us from it.   The Bible says in 2nd Corinthians 10:3For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.4For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,5casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ...

Making excuses for our disobedience and rationalizing the actions we take that are not in line with God's plan for us are common activities, I would think, but not acceptable to the Lord.    We have to guard against such forces as complacency or distraction, confessing the areas where we fall short, so that Christ's power might be released in us.  By our spiritual sensitivity, when we detect that we have areas in our hearts that are not fully surrendered to His Lordship, we devote ourselves in a fresh way to loving and serving our Lord - not making excuses, but loving Him wholeheartedly.

In 1st John 2, we are encouraged to guard against areas that will delude us from our true obedience to Christ, to which we are called:
15Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.16For all that is in the world--the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life--is not of the Father but is of the world.17And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

There's a new nationwide survey about excuses given by employees who called in sick, and some of these reasons for missing work are, well to say the least, outlandish.

According to UPI.com, the survey commissioned by CareerBuilder of just under 3500 U.S. full-time workers and almost 2100 hiring managers and human resource professionals, carried out online recently by Harris Interactive, found excuses given by employees who called in sick include losing false teeth out the car window while driving on the highway, needing Monday off to recover from a favorite football team's Sunday loss, being unable to get to a car because of a swarm of bees, being unable to leave the house due to windows and doors being glued shut and being too grouchy for work because of quitting smoking.

The survey suggests 32 percent of U.S. workers have called in sick without actually being ill in the past year and 30 percent said they went to work despite their sickness so they could save their sick days for when they were well.

The survey suggests 30 percent of employers note an increase in sick days being used around the holidays, and 30 percent said they have checked in on employees who called in sick to verify their ailments.

We can sometimes be imaginative to our detriment.   There are excuses, sometimes legitimate, and then there are outright lies, stories that are spun that don't have any resemblance to reality.   And, as believers, we can sometimes tell ourselves lies to rationalize why we don't follow the leadership of the Lord in our lives.

There are many reasons why we make up excuses for not being obedient.   We have to remember that we are still human beings who are prone to sin.   Even though our new nature has been regenerated by Christ, there are still tendencies that remain, and hopefully are being eradicated, that cause us to be less than passionate about our obedience.

And, there are legitimate attacks of the enemy upon us, which, if not repelled, can result in our being less than connected to and less than effective for Christ.   We have to take up the full armor every day, or else we risk falling prey to temptation.   It's been said if Satan can't keep us out of the Kingdom of God, he will try to keep us unproductive for the Lord.   We have to make sure that he is not keeping us deceived and distracted.

Why don't we wholeheartedly follow Christ?   I think we recognize it could be our own flesh or the attack of the enemy.   And, we have to identify what we love.    The Bible says that we are to have no other gods before Him, and when we put the things of this world on a higher pedestal than the Lord who died for us, then we find ourselves in a state of experiencing less than God's best for us.   We can be challenged to follow the Great Commandment to love the Lord our God with our entire heart, soul, mind, and strength.   We can rationalize all we want and make excuses, and tell ourselves lies, but the truth is that God wants us to surrender our entire hearts and lives and to develop a passion for Him, to follow His will in an excuse-free fashion.