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The Blame Game

On most days, I stop at Starbucks for coffee before heading to the office. There, I usually spend some time talking with staff and other patrons. Many days I visit with a man who has lived a pretty tough life. He is almost 60 and lives on a fixed income in a not so nice apartment.

In many of our conversations, whenever the issue of his poor choices in life come up, he is quick to deflect responsibility from himself. In one case, he received a ticket for driving without insurance and received a large fine. When we talk about what happened and his responsibility in it he is quick to deflect the blame.

You see, from his perspective, it wasn’t his fault. He forgot to renew his insurance and was stopped by a police officer. From his perspective, the officer should have let him go. He is quick to blame the attitude of the police officer who pulled him over and gave him the citation. He believes he didn’t do anything wrong…

As Christians, we sometimes do the same thing. In fact, there are times when we will justify our sin by blaming our actions or attitudes on other’s. It’s nothing new. It has been happening from almost day one…

Back in Genesis 3, we have the account of when sin entered the world. To summarize, the serpent tempted Eve to eat the fruit from the tree God prohibited them to eat. After eating the fruit, she gave some to her husband Adam who was there. When God confronted them about it, the blame game began.

Genesis 3:12-13 gives their response to God when confronted with their sin. “The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Did you see how the blame game works? Instead of taking responsibility for their actions, they quickly passed the blame on someone else. Adam blamed Eve and she blamed the serpent.

The Bible tells us when we sin there is no one else responsible except ourselves. James 1:13-14 says, “When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed.”

When it comes to sin, the choice and the responsibility is ours. We can’t blame God. We can’t blame the Devil. We can’t blame anyone else.

But there is hope. 1 John 1:8-10 says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”

I can remember seeing the Family Circle cartoons in the paper. When something was broken or something was wrong, and the children were confronted, their answer was always, “Not me.” And in the cartoon was another “ghost-like” character with “Not me” written on it.

How many of us can remember when we were children and were confronted by our parents for doing something wrong? How did we respond? Did we confess right away or did we deny it or try to blame someone else? I know if I confessed right away, sometimes there was forgiveness. And on the occasions when there was punishment, it was far less than if I tried to deny it or blame others and then the truth became known.

The great thing about God is, there is no punishment. If we confess our sin, God forgives. He is able to do so because of what Jesus did on the cross on our behalf. He died so we could be forgiven.

But when we try to blame others and don’t take responsibilities for our sins, it says the truth is not in us and we make God a liar. What John is saying here is a Christian doesn’t play the blame game. A Christian takes responsibility for their shortcomings.

You might ask, “Why?” As Christians, we have a relationship with a loving and grace-filled God. John says, “if we confess… God forgives.” When we sin, we confess it to God and He forgives. What a wonderful blessing to know that God forgives.

The blame game does nothing but magnify our sin before God and our mistrust of Him. We need to stop playing the blame game, but to do so means we need to begin to take responsibility for our actions. God is love. God forgives.

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