What’s your excuse?

One of the things we all have in common is our ability to make excuses in an effort either to get out of blame or doing something we really don’t want to do. Artificial intelligence is good at it as well. When one askes Google or Siri or Alexa, advice will be offered as to what constitutes a good believable excuse and what does not. On a more humorous note, an article posted on Reader’s Digest website last September listed sixty-one ridiculous excuses people used to try to get out of work, all the way from an employee’s llama continuously throwing up, to false teeth flying out the window while driving, to forgetting one had been hired for the job in the first place, to having fake eyelashes stuck together. (https://www.rd.com/list/excuses-for-calling-out-of-work/)

So if you were the boss, how would you react? Almighty God is not our boss, but God the Father is just that – our loving Father; Jesus is our perfect Brother; the Holy Spirit even makes us His temple. How do you think God feels when we come up with our ridiculous excuses to justify our sin and, in some cases, get out of what He would have us do in working for the growth of His Kingdom? The fact is the old phrase “honesty is the best policy” still rings true. When we find ourselves in sin or in unwillingness to follow our Lord’s lead, it is always best to stop going down the path we are, ask for forgiveness, and pray that God the Holy Spirit would work an attitude in us that willfully and joyfully seeks to follow Jesus and walk in His ways – Jesus, who could have used the excuse, “I’m God who has every reason to punish these people rather than save them,” but in love followed His Father’s will that we might have the wondrous joy of living as the forgiven, redeemed children of God not just now, but for all eternity.

All to Jesus I surrender, Lord, I give myself to Thee;

Fill me with Thy love and power, Let Thy blessing fall on me.

I surrender all, I surrender all.

All to Thee, my blessed Savior, I surrender all.