Excuses

Judgmental, Hypocrisy and Prejudice - These three words seem to keep many people from coming to God or at least the excuse not to. We love to condemn or blame anyone who may be guilty of anyone of these three because in our minds it makes us a better person. We evaluate others on the basis of whether their sin exceeds our own and as long as their sins don’t exceed ours, then we accept them as one of us. If we perceive them better than us, then we find the need to take them down a peg. I’ve heard it said many times, “At least I’ve never killed anyone.” If that was the only sin in the world we would all being doing pretty good, or would we? If you have even thought about this then you are just as guilty as doing it. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.

We will never eradicate these problems because they are sin. Since we can’t eradicate sin, we will have to deal with this is a problem within ourselves and with the help of Christ. There’s not a one of us who is not guilty of being judgmental, a hypocrite or prejudiced. You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Romans 2:1-3 I had a philosophy one time that if I was to become really bad then I would have no right to look down on others. By the way, it didn’t work. We may improve these problems, but we’ll never remove them.

At boot camp we do something called negative tapes. The women go first by filling in the blank…All men are _________. Then the men get the same opportunity to say…All women are __________. Then they do one more…All Christians are ___________. For anyone to answer these comments truthfully they would have had to meet all men, all women and all Christians before they could make an accurate analysis. We base what we think of others according to our own hurt and pain. We are also attracted to those on the same level of emotional pain. Think about that statement and the person you married or you may be dating at this time.

All of these things can be traced back to legalism, living the Christian life by our own will power and rules. This promotes self-righteousness and pride and that promotes Judgmentalness, Hypocrisy and Prejudice. Living in grace produces humility and power.

The bottom line is we really don’t want to feel bad about ourselves and the solution we’ve devised to help us feel better or look better is to knock others down so we can stand above them. We also see it as the opportunity to give us an excuse for doing what we really desire to do.

I’m not going to church because of all those hypocrites down there.

What’s the use in reading the Bible, I can’t understand it anyway.

I’m not going to a party where people are just going to look down on me.

Love is just something people say to get what they want.

That church has enough money, so they’re not getting mine to blow.

I’m sorry, but I just don’t know much about the Bible or God.

You get the point. That last statement definitely doesn’t stand in our society… I’m sorry, but I just don’t know much about the Bible or God. There are over 20 versions of the Bible not to mention 1000’s of Christian books to learn from. The only one at fault for not knowing is yours. You say, well, I don’t like to read. So!! By saying any of these things you are giving all those people control of your life. They are telling you what to think, how to think and where you can go. You are also the most likely candidate for being duped in following a stupid person. (False Prophet) If people are truly guilty of judgmentalness, hypocrisy or prejudice it doesn’t matter, you are still giving them control of your life if you are basing your choices on them. I would rather push all those people aside and consider what God thinks. I choose to let Him have control over my life because all I can seem to do is mess it up.

Staying Busy

It amazes me that even though we have the modern conveniences to speed up our lifestyle such as washers and dryers, dishwashers, microwaves, automobiles and computers, we still have dirty clothes, dirty dishes in the sink, eating fast foods and usually being late everywhere we go and whatever time we have left we spend on the computer instead of doing all the things listed above. Hmmm!

I guarantee I’m not pointing fingers at anyone except myself on this one. So what’s the problem? Well, we have more clothes, more dishes, we eat more, and living in a metroplex we think nothing about driving 30 miles which for some is a one way commute to work. I guess we should be more thankful.

Years ago I remember reading a story being written as from the lips of Satan. It was his and his demons duty to keep us busy. If he could keep us busy we would not have time for God or our families. He’s got some working 2 or 3 jobs just to keep their head above water and in turn has us to call it noble. Mothers have had to leave the home to help provide for the family and in turn we call it noble. Soccer and karate practice and the many sports we get involved in takes its toll on us as well.

Divorce is rampant as you all know and one of the reasons is because of all the stress that is heaped on us daily trying to get through the day. Another reason we like to keep busy is because we don’t like to face whatever we may be running from. I know for myself when I am keeping busy it’s very suspicious. What’s chasing you? What do you not want to think about? What are you hiding from? Some may use work to hide while others, like me, zone out in front of the TV. You may not have even noticed it until now.

We live in a so-called society where we are told that we have it all. The conveniences of modern man, but yet we have so much turmoil, pain, hurt and crime I see in so many lives daily. I encourage you to take a moment and breathe, take a walk or a drive and notice the beauty around you. Then think about this verse, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." Psalm 46:10

Fork in the Road

Many of us have been in situations struggling with a decision of what is right what is wrong. Eventually all of us have to face the proverbial fork in the road in our lifetime. We go to people we feel should have the answers to certain questions because they have a degree in psychology, a degree in seminary or they might be your pastor. Certainly one of these people should have truthful answers. In Psalm 1:1 is says, “Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the ungodly or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of the scornful. I think there is a very strong urge for us to be careful.

I know growing up and not having any confidence in myself I would listen to the person who seems to know the answers. I heard in a class that if you said something with enough authority and confidence you could get anyone to fall for it. This of course happened with Hitler and many false leaders. My oldest son verified this because he is smart, so therefore few people would questions his ideas even when he knew he was making it up.

I’ve been confronted by many of these people and sometimes the difference between them and the truth is so slight it can be very scary. Did you know that you could follow the Bible verbatim and be completely wrong? It comes down to the heart and I can’t see their heart, so I have to go to someone who can. God is the only one who can see the heart of any of us and so many times I feel His Spirit tugging at me and warning me there is something not right about a situation or person. Often I don’t know what it is and I have to wait for it to come out later.

My encouragement to you is to make your own decisions, but make them wise. First of all be careful of your feelings. Feelings have a way of misguiding us and leading us straight into the trap. There is only one truth that I know of and that is Jesus. He said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6 There are some that say that Jesus was arrogant to make such a claim. I guess when you’re God you can do whatever you want.

There have been so many women taken advantage of by pastors or different men under the guise of counsel. Because of their own lack of confidence or ignorance they believed ever word told to them. I used to be very trusting of everyone and I think I got burned enough to be more careful. I would suggest instead of giving someone trust and take it away as they blow it, don’t give them any trust and make them earn it. I don’t even trust myself 100%. This goes for everyone. You may not even trust God 100% and that’s ok, but I would challenge you to start trusting Him more and let Him prove Himself.

Boundaries

Several years ago I went to a seminar so to speak that cost me $300. This really irritated me that I had to pay so much for something I needed so badly. However, I have to admit that learning about boundaries help me and changed my life. I spent so much time and energy trying to take care of things that weren’t my problem and responsibility. Once I gave everyone’s problems back to them it was amazing how light my load got then I could function again.

Boundaries define us and help us and others to understand who we are and to understand our identity. If you had no boundaries, I can assure you that if I asked the question, “Who are you?” You would look at me blank faced and probably be in tears. One of the desires you have is for others to understand who you are, but they can’t because you don’t even know.

You are only responsible for yourself (unless you have little children) but you have responsibilities to others. You are responsible for your feelings, behaviors, attitudes and desires. You can’t lay blame and responsibility on someone else to make you feel a certain way. That’s your problem. If anyone tries to make you responsible for any of these responsibilities, tell them No! You are not responsible to make others feel loved; you are only responsible to love them. Accepting the love is their responsibility. I hear this so many times.

In order for people to know what we like and don’t like and to develop our own identity, then we have to tell them. They can’t read our minds. It was so amazing the first few times I started telling people, “No! I don’t like that;” I was scared to death of what repercussions might come. What I had to do to set boundaries was to realize that when I set a boundary it helped others to grow.

Example: For years there was a supervisor at work that had a tendency to snap at people for little or no reason. Later he would always come back and apologize. Of course everyone would say, “No problem, don’t worry about it.” This of course just gave him permission to do it again and he wasn’t growing out of this poor behavior. One day I decided to give this boundary thing a try. He snapped at me one morning for no reason and the next day he came to apologize. I was ready for him. Long story short I didn’t let him off the hook and he never snapped at me again. This helped him to grow some too.

The biggest reason we do not like to set boundaries is not because we fear hurting others, but because we fear hurting ourselves. I didn’t want to tell people, No. Not just because I feared confrontation and I feared they might not like me anymore, but because it hurt me. The reason we don’t want to tell our children no is because we don’t want to hurt ourselves or have to deal with the hardship of making the No stick. If you can ever grasp this one principle I promise you it will change your life.

What if my husband is beating me? I’ve told him No so many times it doesn’t mean anything anymore. Then it’s time for a bigger no. Call the police, have him arrested and thrown in prison. Then he’ll understand, No! This is where they usually say, “What am I going to do about money and the kids seeing their daddy hauled off to jail and blah, blah, blah.” I never said it would be easy, but you have to make a choice to decide what you really want.

There lies the bottom line. How bad do I want change? If you haven’t come to the point yet you’re willing to do anything, then you haven’t reached the point of being able to set boundaries. I have to be honest and say it wasn’t easy for me at first, but I started with little things and got better at it over the years.

Boundaries isn’t just telling other people No, but also telling yourself No. Such as, I will not let others hurtful remarks control me, I will not make others responsible to make me feel loved or I will not hold others responsible for my feelings and emotions. It’s very freeing to not allow others to control every aspect of your life. Just remember it takes time to learn so don’t expect to conquer this in a few situations.