This chapter will be a little more personal because I intend to share some of the things I have done in life that made God look bad. I also plan to show some people in the Bible who forgot to be led by God and how it turned out bad. Earlier in this chapter I covered what it looked like to be led by spirit but when we fail we can not blame God; for this it is by our own doing. I also wanted to say how much it angers me whenever I hear, "the devil made me do it", NO he didn't! You did whatever it is that you are giving him credit for. Basically everything comes down to a choice and no one made that choice for you but you so stop blaming it on anything else.
Throughout my life I have made some real bad decisions and I have had to pay the price for all these things. Now I could blame other people for what had happened but in the end I did what ever it was by my own choice. I have been a lot of things in my life. I have been a pot head, an alcoholic, a liar, a cheater, a thief, and even a person who has been angry at God, but why? Was it God's fault for calling me somewhere and me not being able to handle the stresses of life? Was it the devils fault for putting all kinds of sin in my way? Or was it my fault for being to blind and stupid to realize when I was moving outside of the will of God? Well to me the answer is obvious, ME, but to many people instead of taking blame for what they have done they choose to point the finger at anything other than themselves. Oh, the blame game it goes deeper than just saying that it is someone else's fault we go as far to blame our past, the devil, and at the worst case we blame God.
So let us start with blaming God. Now understand that I think blaming God for any kind of evil is completely unbiblical! If anyone ends up in a place that God has called them then the choices made after arriving are theirs and not because they were called there. I want to look at some people in the Bible that came to a place by the will of God and what happened on their journey. Lets start with a story that is well known, the Israelites leaving Egypt to the promise land (Exodus 12). Now we know that the reason they were leaving was to go to the promise land but something happened. Most people know that on their way that they are given the ten commandments and many other rules to live by. So what went wrong? Well, like most people they got upset with their current situation and instead of looking toward what God had promised them and they rebelled. Some say that in this they moved from God's perfect will into His passive will in the wilderness. Although I agree to this point to a extent I see it more like this: God is not a liar so even though the people did pretty much what God told them not to do He had to follow through with His promise. See, the people could blame God for all of their mistakes but even in their sin God still took care of them with a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. Ultimately no one can blame God for what had happened it was the choice of the people to fall away and miss out on the promise.
Well, then the devil made me do it! WRONG! There are two stories in the Bible that I can think of where people could try and blame the devil. Lets start with an easy one the garden of Eden. Yes, the devil deceived Eve who turned around and convinced Adam to fall too but is it the devil's fault? Of course not. Blaming the devil for this would be like trying to tell a cop that your friend told you that you could speed so he is the one that deserves a ticket instead. Adam and Eve had free will and they could have said no. How about Job? If you have read Job you know that the devil was allowed to do anything to Job just not to kill him. Throughout the story Job is told that it is his fault for his situation and to curse God and die. He refuses to do so until closer to the end and that is when God shows up to set him straight. Even with all of that I have seen nowhere that Job blames the devil but I could be wrong, it has been a while since I have read Job. Again with Job he had all right to blame the devil for his situation but not for his reaction to what was going on.
So who is to blame for how we act? Well the answer is simple, WE ARE. I am well aware that we all have a sin nature inside of us but it is up to us to follow that or die to it. (Rom 7:21 and Rom 8:5-13) We are the ones that must take blame for our own sins and repent for them. We can no longer try to point the finger to an outward source and say that something made us do this or that. We must realize that we are all sinners and need a savior.(John 15:22 and 1 Tim 1:15) We make God look bad when we try to either justify or blame our sin on something other than ourselves. As His people we must be led by the spirit, as I said in the first part, and when we fail just admit it. When we do this we come back to a realization that we are all sinners always needing help with our lives and a savior who can help us.
As I said at the beginning I am dealing with something that I have messed up with, what I did is not important, and it made me realize how frail I am. At times we get too comfortable with life and forget that EVERY day we need God to guide us. When we do mess up we must not try to run and hide, like Adam and Eve, but instead face it. We must not blame anyone or anything but instead repent. We are at our best when we call to our Father for help and at our worst when we think that we have everything under control. We must never act as if God can "sit this one out" in our lives. He is our way, our truth, and our LIFE.
To sum up this whole thing, we need to put our lives back in the hands of God and when we mess up face it. God hates when we sin but delights when we truly repent and call on Him for help. It is not God's fault or the devil's fault, it is our fault. We give the devil too much credit and God too little. Let me end like I always do by asking some questions. What are you trying to hide and not repent from? Do you blame God, the devil, or realize it is your fault? How would your life be different if you stop blaming others and started owning up to your own problems?
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