We have an iPad that we allow the kids to watch movies on. One day I picked it up and the corner of the protective case was broken off. When I asked the kids how it happened, nobody knew. Not one of them would own up to breaking it.
A few days later I picked it up again and this time the glass was broken on the same corner. Family meeting time. I showed them the damage and asked who broke it. Again, nobody knew.
About a week later, I found that the iPad had another chunk of the protective case broken off. As I brought it around from kid to kid, guess what? Nobody knew. A pattern was developing here.
A few weeks later, I came home to find that the entire screen was completely shattered, but when I asked around, big surprise, nobody had a clue how it happened.
I have to admit that I was angry, but I was much more upset that my kids weren’t being honest than I was about a piece of glass.
Human nature hasn’t changed much since the garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned, first they tried to hide from God. When the sin was exposed, then one after the other they blame shifted and deflected responsibility to someone else.
If you are proud and refuse to acknowledge your guilt, then you will not receive the forgiveness of God. Some people refuse because they blame shift. They either try to lay the entire blame somewhere else, or they justify their own shortcomings because they were brought on by some circumstance. Ever done that? That’s not humility.
This is a sure way to keep yourself out of the grace of God. “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6
What God is looks for is confession. He is ready to forgive those who confess. What is confession? To put it simply, it’s a humble admission of guilt. No more blame shifting. No more excuses. Just a confession. Kind of like a genuine apology to God.
Look at these three verses and see the contrast between those who are willing to confess and those who refuse to, from 1 John 1:8-10.
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
Which do you want to be?