Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

James 1:22-25 ESV

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”

What I believe the Lord wants me to focus on today is this subject of self-deception. For many people are using the excuse that they are and/or were self-deceived and that is why they did (or do) all the bad things that they did (and/or are actively still doing). But look at what this is saying here. This is speaking of people who are hearers of the Word. They know the truth. They know right from wrong. So, it isn’t that they don’t know that the evil they choose to do is evil, but that they choose to do the evil anyway.

They actively make a conscious choice to deceive themselves, not because they don’t understand good and evil, but because they want to do the evil and not the good. And it isn’t that they have not had a good hard look at themselves and where they are and the mess that they are in, but that they choose to block that out of their minds so that they can continue in their deliberate and habitual and premeditated sin without guilt and without conscience. They willfully lie to themselves so they don’t feel guilty.

So, when someone who professes faith in Jesus Christ continues in deliberate and habitual and premeditated sin, they do so knowing full well that what they are doing is wrong. When they commit adultery against their spouses over and again, they know that they are hurting their spouses, but they do it anyway. And when they lie to themselves and to others in order to cover up their sin, or to make excuses for why they are still in bondage to sin, and for why they are not yet free, that is a conscious act of their will.

So, if this is where you are, continually making excuses for why you are still living in addiction (slavery) to sin, claiming you are self-deceived and therefore you didn’t know how bad you were or how wrong it was what you were doing, and especially if you have been doing this for many years fully knowing the truth of the gospel and what it teaches, you are definitely without excuse. So stop the sham! Look into the gospel and be no hearer who forgets (deliberately) but a doer who acts. You will then be blessed.

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

Video Talk

December 16, 2022

https://youtu.be/aPHFKLvk7y4

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Broken Cord

An Original Work / August 29, 2018

Your bond is broken

With your Lord and Savior

And your testimony is

Separate from Him.

Your words not matching

Your actions today.

Repent of your sin and

Bow down and pray.

Live what you testify

In truth always.

Purity’s lacking in

Your life and witness,

For you profess one thing,

But other you do.

Not moral, spiritual.

Still of the flesh.

Not living in truth to

What you confess.

Lying about it

Puts you in a mess.

Living a lie is your practice,

‘tis true of you.

Masquerade righteousness –

None of it true.

Your heart is not given

To your Lord God.

Because of how you live,

You are a fraud.

Turn from your sin and

Give your life to God.

https://vimeo.com/287303934