The Problem With Wrapping Acts Of The Flesh In Excuses

My Utmost For His Highest

…come, follow Me. —Luke 18:22

{CHAMBERS} “Where our individual desire dies and sanctified surrender lives. One of the greatest hindrances in coming to Jesus is the excuse of our own individual temperament. We make our temperament and our natural desires barriers to coming to Jesus. Yet the first thing we realize when we do come to Jesus is that He pays no attention whatsoever to our natural desires. We have the idea that we can dedicate our gifts to God. However, you cannot dedicate what is not yours. There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). […]  A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.”

{ELGIN}  We should never make excuses for our flesh, as if there is some aspect of our old nature that is beyond the reach of God or worse yet, acceptable and pleasing to Him.  Is there something about you that you cling to, make excuses for, or maybe accept as inescapable?  It might be your anger or it might be some other trait that is contrary to your new life in Christ.  The bottom line, it’s sin.  I have made reference to Galatians chapter 5 on a number of occasions, but it bears reference again.  Verses 19-21 describe what I call the “fruit of the flesh”.  That which is normal, and in many ways acceptable, in the natural world. Verses 22-25 describe the fruit of the Spirit.  That which is normal in the super-natural world.  The world, the new life that, as a Christian, you have been born in to. 

Verse 25 says “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”  Your flesh will continue to try to rise up in you.  Don’t accept that.  Don’t make excuses for it.  You must stand against that.  2 Corinthians 5:17 “If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.  Old things (things of the flesh) are passed away, behold all things have become new (things of the Spirit)”.  Oh, and don’t make excuses for other people.  I hear wives do that all the time for their husbands.  If you put lipstick on a pig it’s still a pig.  A rose is still a rose.  Acts of the flesh don’t look any different wrapped in an excuse.