Credit Where Credit is Due

It is amazing sometimes how much credit we give to the devil on some occasions, and how little we give him on others. While we surely do NOT owe this father of lies and bringer of death any honor, we do need to respect his powers.

Let me share with you what I mean. Some people will leave home so late for church that there is really no way they can get there in time anyway, and yet they will blame the devil for their tardiness. They will tell you how they hit 3 out of 4 red lights along the way, and the Starbucks drive-through had 4 cars in line when normally that time of day it usually only has 2, and somehow this is the devils fault. In this case the only thing the devil should get credit for is causing you to lie to yourself.

Then there are people who, being surely tormented by the devil (in whatever that situation might be), who would rather blame themselves for 'not having enough faith', or for their 'past', or because they watched a PG-13 movie last week, or because they watched 'The Who' half-time show during the Superbowl, or just generally beat themselves up with condemnation. In other words, when the enemy is wreaking havoc in one's life, we need to identify that, respect the power behind it, and bring the real power of God into our lives to overcome it.

More clearly, when it IS the devils behind something, blame him for bringing the temptation into your life, and then repent and deal with it through the Spirit. When it is NOT the enemy's temptation behind it, take responsibility for your state of affairs, own your sin, admit that you have given into the flesh, and work to make yourself right before God.

I use this as an introduction to my point. We are humans, fallen humans; and we live in a world surrounded by sin. By being human, it is totally natural for you to look at the things that go wrong in our lives, and then start playing the 'blame game'. There is always enough blame to go around, or so we like to tell ourselves.

I'm to blame: So we play the martyr, and mire ourselves in self-pity rather than taking grasp of God promises and move on cleansed by His blood of forgiveness.

He or she is to blame: So we play the role or relationship spoiler, and rather than bowing ourselves before a God and King that has promised to be faithful to forgive us, we will ruin a relationship and along with it any chance we may have had at being a good witness for Jesus.

The devil made me do it: So the blame game gives credit to someone who takes joy in ruining your life (the devil himself) in spite of the fact that it is not his fault.

Or lastly, we blame God: Sadly this is too often the case, and as we might see, we are blaming God more often than we think.

God told Adam and Eve to trust Him. God told Abraham to trust Him. God told David to trust Him. God has told you and me to trust Him. What is beautiful about this is that God did not just say 'trust Me', and then walk away. He said, "trust Me', and then gave us a promise. The promise is that He would send a deliverer, a savior for you and me so that no matter what happens in this life, we have forgiveness and salvation waiting for us.

The way I look at it, and the way I see it in so many cases of people I have been in contact with (believers and otherwise), two things top the list for the reasons we play the blame game as we looked at above.

1. Pride
2. Short Term Memory Loss

Pride is a deal killer for God. He made promises to you for so much, and yet we lack so much because we become impatient, and our pride causes us to act on our own behalf instead of waiting on the Lord and His timing. Abraham made this mistake for sure. God made a promise that he would have descendants that outnumbered the stars in the sky. But late in his life, 90 some years of age, he was still childless. He took matters into his own hand, and his wife's handmaiden into his own bedroom and proceeded to make the biggest mistake since the fruit eating contest in the Garden of Eden. So when we make the same mistake, it is not a first. The sin of pride has taken place many times before, and it will take place again. Pride causes us to choose ourselves, and our will, over God and His will.

On the other hand, our minds and hearts get so busy and full with the things of the world, that the things of God get put on the back burner. We forget that God loves us, and we forget that God has made promises to care for us. The trappings of life and of the world block our clear thinking, and cause us to look for solutions outside of God's will and God's timing. The things of God are His and in His timing, but we want the things we want and in our time. Why? Because we forget God's promises.

What is the effect of forgetting God's promises in our lives? Sin. Ask Abraham. And when we give God 'enough time' to work in our lives, when we have identified that it was sin in our lives and repented, and when we are done blaming Satan and all of our friends for the problems in our lives we are left with only blaming God. When we feel like we are not feeling the fruits of His work in a manner that we expect, we begin to blame God. Check yourself. This has probably happened more than you know. Blaming God is a foolish, foolish mistake if a milk-drinking Christian that desperately needs to be in His Word.

Many people have written about the volumes of God's promises. I do not want to do that here. What I simply want to do is tell you that if you have given your life to Him, FULLY give it to Him, and trust in His promise to bring you home to Him in His time. Trust enough to know that everything in between is in His hands.