Full of Lame Excuses

[Christsfreeservant]

“He who loves purity of heart,​

and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend.​

The eyes of the Lord keep watch over knowledge,​

but he overthrows the words of the traitor.​

The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside!​

I shall be killed in the streets!’​

The mouth of forbidden women is a deep pit;​

he with whom the Lord is angry will fall into it.” (Proverbs 22:11-14 ESV)​

Who is he who loves purity of heart? He (or she) is a person of integrity, decency, honor, goodness, honesty, faithfulness, and moral purity. He is also a person of faith in Jesus Christ whose desire is for God and for his word and for obedience to the Lord and to his word. So, he is not someone who is living in deliberate and habitual sin, but he is someone who is walking in holiness and in righteousness in the sight of God, in the power of God.

This is a person whose speech is described as gracious, or full of grace. And when I think of grace I think of God’s grace to us in how he gave himself up for us on that cross so that we could be delivered from our slavery to sin and so we can now walk in his holiness and righteousness, in the power of God. For his grace trains us to renounce (say “NO!” to) ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives on this earth.

So, this would not be someone who just says what other people want to hear to make them feel good. This would not be someone who is charming, which can be totally fake and manipulative, too. But as a person of integrity and of purity of heart, this would be a person who would speak the truth in love to others because he/she knows that the truth is what will set them free and that the lies are what will send them to hell. For this person loves.

And who are those who are traitors? They are “double agents,” i.e. those who might act like they are your best friends but while they are conspiring against you behind your back in order to bring you down in order to destroy you. For they are the disloyal, fakes, liars, deceivers, manipulators, faithless, double-crossing, adulterous, two-faced tricksters and con artists. So they cannot be trusted for they are like wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Now some of these traitors are also these sluggards (habitually lazy, indolent, apathetic, idle, worthless, useless, vain, frivolous, etc.). They don’t do anymore than they have to do, and if they can get away with not even doing that, they sometimes will. And that is because they are thinking of self and what they want rather than thinking of others and what is good for them. They are very self-driven even to the point of doing evil to others.

And they have all kinds of excuses for why they cannot do what is right and for why they continue to do wrong habitually. They often blame anyone or anything else instead of themselves, but even if they acknowledge that their failures are their own fault, they will still have a pile of excuses for why they are still living the way they are doing the same types of things they have been doing, some of them for a very long time.

But this will be mixed in with declarations of love and care and concern, and they will claim that they don’t really want to live the way that they do and that they really do want to change. And they will talk about how badly they feel that they keep doing the evil that they do, and over the fact that they keep going in the same circles over again. But not badly enough to change, for there is always an excuse for why they can’t change.

But none of the excuses “hold water.” They are all “lame” excuses they repeat over again in order to excuse away their slothfulness and their idolatries and adulteries and continued sexual immorality and unfaithfulness and wantonness. It is like they want us to believe that they are somehow the exception to the rule, i.e. that God’s word doesn’t work for them like it does for other people, because, deep down, they don’t want to change.

And so they continue on in their deliberate and habitual cyclical pattern of lies, excuses, idolatries, adulteries, unfaithfulness, and disobedience to God, choosing their own way and not God’s way, deliberately hurting those they are supposed to love, and without conscience or compassion or true remorse. For there are always excuses. So God gives them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves.

And he does this because they exchanged the truth about God and his word for a lie and so they end up worshipping and serving the creature (even themselves) rather than the Creator. And so they delve into all sorts of worldly passions and desires and into all sorts of sexual immorality, including homosexuality, inappropriate contentography addiction, self-gratification, and all sorts of other deviant behaviors all of which are dishonoring to God (Romans 1:18-32).

So, don’t be like the one who is both a sluggard and a traitor who is full of excuses for why he can’t be faithful and pure in heart and mind and body. But surrender your hearts and lives to the Lord Jesus Christ in true humility and submission to Christ as Lord. And then in the power of God walk in integrity and in purity of heart and follow in the ways of the Lord in holy living from now to eternity, and you will have eternal life with God.

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

Lead Me Gently Home, Father

By Will L. Thompson, 1879

Lead me gently home, Father,
Lead me gently home;
When life’s toils are ended,
And parting days have come,
Sin no more shall tempt me,
Ne’er from Thee I’ll roam,
If Thou’ll only lead me, Father,
Lead me gently home.

Lead me gently home, Father,
Lead me gently home, Father,
Lest I fall upon the wayside,
Lead me gently home.

Lead me gently home, Father,
Lead me gently home;
In life’s darkest hours, Father,
When life’s troubles come,
Keep my feet from wand’ring,
Lest from Thee I roam,
Lest I fall upon the wayside,
Lead me gently home.

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