The Life Challenges Podcast
Modern-day issues from a Biblical perspective.
The Life Challenges Podcast
Why Reasons and Rationalizations Don’t Replace Repentance
Ever notice how easy it is to defend yourself and how hard it is to say, “I was wrong”? From kitchen-table conflicts to headline-making controversies, we trace how self-justification sneaks into our words, our ethics, and even our prayers—and why real repentance is the only path to enjoy the forgiveness already won for us.
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On today's episode.
SPEAKER_00:Without repentance, you are not going to enjoy God's forgiveness for your sins. Because it's it's not that there isn't forgiveness out there. It's not that that forgiveness is is dependent or conditional upon your repenting, because of course all our sins were forgiven at the cross. But if you refuse to say, I did something wrong that I need forgiveness for, you're not going to be taking hold of that forgiveness, and you're not going to enjoy that. Welcome to the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Our world today presents people with complicated issues of life and death, marriage and family, health, and science. It can be a struggle to understand or deal with them. We're here to help by bringing good information and a fresh biblical perspective to these matters and more. Join us now for life challenges.
SPEAKER_04:Hi, and welcome back. I'm Krista Potritz, and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samelson. And today we're going to talk about excuses or reasons and rationalizations are not excuses. Making excuses for things maybe when not dealing with them. And when sin, when maybe we make excuses for things that we should be addressing head on. Do you want to just kind of start us off by what uh prompted you to think about these things in this episode?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I mean I can't r remember w what the precise thing was that that put it into my mind, but it just occurred to me that this is something that goes on so much in our individual lives and in society as well. Certainly we hear it in politics. I I'm not going to go into the details of it lest anyone be offended or whatever, but there was a recent case in in political news in our our country where a figure went out and he made a video that said some things, and then he got a lot of flack for that. And instead of owning up to it and saying, Oh yeah, I really made a bad decision there, he said, Oh, well, see, I, you know, this wasn't properly vetted by the people who work for me. And even though I read it before I read it as a video, and then I read it on the video, and then of course, you know, there was after the video, even though I am the one who said all of these things, it's not my fault because somebody else should have done better work before telling me to say it. We see these kinds of things, and then just in our own lives. I mean, I've uh this has been a lifelong thing for me, something my my wife has caught me on many times. That you know, just they're very good at that. Yeah. That's about to say there are many times I have caught myself, and of course, that means there are countless times I haven't caught myself, thinking like, okay, if somebody challenges me on this, what am I gonna say? And I just like, yeah, I gotta catch myself and say, I gotta say what the truth is that I messed up. I you know, it's it's not, okay, how can I make myself look as good as possible here? No, if I messed up, if I sinned, if I made a mistake, I I I need to own up to that.
SPEAKER_01:Part of the problem is that uh it's not a very forgiving culture. People who own up to mistakes sometimes people argue, well, that still should disqualify you from whatever this or whatever that for a poor judgment early on or something like that. And and that's most unfortunate because when you get into the biblical examples of them, one of my favorite stories is still the story of the restoration of Peter. He was told you're going to deny me. He denied him. There was this whole thing of restoration, and you know, he wasn't making excuses or anything, but he was just kind of like sidestepping. I was just asked this morning actually to rework an article I had written for Clearly Karen that they want to put him forward in Christ. And and I was reading through that and I had touched on how Paul and Peter, maybe why they there's such a strong kinship, is because they seem so much like me. I'm bold, I'm courageous, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it, and then I deny. You know, it and then of course when you get caught, you know, a lot of times, at least for me, well, there there is a reason for it. You know, there's I've I've got and then you begin to rationalize it.
SPEAKER_04:Right, right. Yeah. I think that's the thing too, and and you know, my one of my first questions here is why do you think it is so natural for us, even as Christians, to minimize our sin and offer rationalizations? And my mind goes exactly to what Bob said. Well, that seems like there's a reason for it. And so it just seems natural to want to give the reason an explanation for what happened.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's I I had a reason for doing it, and and that you know I mean the problem is you just stop there and you say, well, that I I had a reason to do it, so therefore it's okay. That's that that's what we're we're trying to get beyond with what we're discussing today. If we were approached this whole thing from the perspective of of modern psychology or or pop psychology, you know, we'd come up with all sorts of reasons why this is this is okay or this is the the why people do it. And many of those reasons would in in themselves minimize or or deny the sinfulness of the things we do. But if we approach it from a more spiritual point of view, particularly a Christian one, we simply say it's it's it's our sinful human nature. That's why we do this. Throw out some some theological terms. One is Latin, the opinion. Basically what that is, it's it's the opinion that I'm a righteous person. I think I'm pretty good. Every one of us has this as part of our human nature. And because of that, all of us, Christian or not, are thinking, well, whatever I did, because I'm a good person, it it can't really be a bad thing that I did. Or at least if it was a bad thing, I had a good reason for it. And so nobody, and including God, should be upset with me for that because of that. And uh this time I won't use Latin, but self-righteousness, it's very much related. It's you know, I want to think that I please God and that I establish myself as a great person by doing the right thing. There's always doing the right thing and knowing what the right thing is, which is kind of difficult. And the easier thing and the more comfortable thing is to say, well, the thing that I did, it's right. I had good reason for it, and uh, so I'm not going to even uh entertain the possibility that I was wrong. And one not so you know theological thing, but just you know, part of human nature is defensiveness. We don't want to give other people who we perceive as always wanting to get an advantage over us, we don't want to give them ammunition. We don't want to say, I did something wrong because we're afraid that's gonna come back at us in a in a negative way.
SPEAKER_01:I've said a number of times on this podcast that my familiar mantra is I sure miss kindergarten, you know, because life was simple. And when you get into these ethical and bioethical issues, we we tend to make it very complicated. It's not just I encountered this bioethical issue and I did something wrong. There generally is like this whole rainfall of issues that surrounded it. It had to do with her and with him and what they said and what I tried to get help I couldn't, and and modernization and technology all plays into it to the point where we almost kind of lose sight of it. But I I often thought uh, you know, of w of the many books that I always keep talking about wanting to write, I always thought I wanted to write a book that was entitled, What if it's true? What if sin really is as bad as it says it is? What if the resurrection really happens? What if you know, in other words, kind of that theme. And and my my point is that we make excuses, I think, because deep down inside we keep trying to tell ourselves it's not that big of a deal. I mean, how many times haven't we had people, you know, tell us, well, okay, but don't tell the pastor. The pastor won't like that. You know, the church doesn't approve of this or or whatever, but we just don't think it's that big of a deal. Well, what if you're wrong? If all you are basing it on is your opinion, we gotta st let stand up to the scrutiny then. Will your opinion hold up? And but that's the problem. I always thought, you know, one of the the blessings of having to be kind of I don't want to say stuck at home, but you know, at home as as a caregiver right now, is it's it's amazing how many dilemmas, moral, ethical dilemmas I would be in normally when I was out traveling. Now I'm I'm sheltered. I I can strengthen I that well, I should have been a hermit, you know, I should have been a m a monk, you know, uh join a monastic order. I just mean you find that regardless of how complex the world has become, it doesn't remove the reality that all sin is serious.
SPEAKER_04:Uh Bob, you know, you had talked a little bit too about some biblical examples in scripture, and we wanted to talk about some of these examples where people rationalized sin. Honestly, I think it's probably pretty easy to find in the Bible. Uh right at the beginning, yeah. But uh what are s what are some that uh jump out to you guys?
SPEAKER_00:Well, yeah, as Bob said, right at the beginning. That's the that's the sets the tone right there. Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, after the fall into sin. What did we hear? Adam says, the woman you gave me made me do it. The woman says, Oh, well, the serpent made me do it. And God didn't accept any of those rationalizations. Yeah, they had reasons. There were reasons there for what they did, but God didn't accept them as rationalizations. He didn't say, Oh, well, that excuses it. But you know, the wonderful thing is that uh even though there is judgment in that respect, he offers the gospel, you know, the very first gospel there, the promise of a savior to deliver them from that sin. Another uh prime example that comes to mind is uh King Saul in 1 Samuel. Two places actually he didn't learn from the first first case. Right at the beginning of his uh his uh kingship, the Philistines have come to attack Israel. Uh he's assembled the army from all over Israel, and Samuel is supposed to come and offer sacrifices before they they go into battle. There's a delay. For whatever reason, Samuel's not not there as soon as they expected him. And so people from the army are starting to drift away, and and Saul's getting concerned. And so he does something he's not supposed to do. He decides, I'm gonna offer this the sacrifices since Samuel isn't here. And he does that. And with God's timing, as soon as he is done, Samuel shows up and says, What did you do? And uh Saul says, I saw that the people were scattering from me, that you did not come within the set number of days, and that the Philistines had assembled their forces at Mi'mash. So I said, Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not sought the favor of the Lord. So I forced myself to offer the burnt offering. Reasons? Lots of reasons there, but they did not excuse what he was uh doing. It Samuel tells me straight out, you messed up big time.
SPEAKER_01:And it even sounded rational by human thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, you find out that maybe God really meant what he said.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you gotta wait. Yeah. And then the second time, which more towards the end of, well, I guess more middle of uh Saul's uh kingship, the Lord through Samuel tells Saul, you need to go down and and wipe out the Amalekites. This has been waiting for a long time, um, but you you need to do that. And um, so Saul gathers the army together, you know, goes down, they they whip the Amalekites, but um they uh take the king of the Amalekites alive, but kills all the other people. But he spares Agag the king and the best of the sheep, the cattle, the fattened calves and the lambs, along with everything else that was good, because they were not willing to devote those things to destruction. Uh, but everything that was undesirable and worthless, that they devoted to destruction. So Samuel confronts him on that, and Saul basically says, Well, uh, we we brought those here so that we could, you know, the we could offer the livestock as sacrifices. That that that's that's why we didn't do do that. Uh we but we did completely destroy everything else. And Samuel says, Um, why didn't you do what the Lord had said? And in fact, did the opposite of that. And and Saul doubles down. But but I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I completed the mission the Lord gave me. I captured King Agag of Amalek, and I've completely destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took some of the plunder, sheep, cattle, and the best of what was devoted to destruction to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal. So he's starting to fudge. Well, I captured the king. That's not what you were told, Saul. And Samuel says it's a really a great line from uh from scripture for all of us to remember, to obey is better than sacrifice. And um, you know, it says, the Lord has rejected you as king, Saul. And everything from that point on in Saul's you know, time as king was was not good. So those are those are uh some other I'll see if if if Bob has any others that he wants to throw in there.
SPEAKER_01:I always thought um Chudas was a good example of somebody who Especially like when you see the way he's often portrayed too in some contemporary video type stuff, and in that he we started off as a fan, then uh he sees something wrong. And there's a common thread that runs through this, it runs through the stories that you told about Saul and so forth, and that is that we either don't have a complete knowledge of what God said, or we just kind of turned a blind eye to part of what God says in his word. And so Judas had turned a blind eye to what God had said, and basically just kind of sold him out. I've seen these arguments, you know, where people said, well, Judas was just destined. He was destined to betray Jesus. No, he's still held accountable for it. And the the point is that if you're going to live by the law, you're gonna be held accountable by the law. And Saul was trying to hold himself accountable to the law, trying to do all the right things, but once in a while he just felt that he saw a better way. The thing that I find peculiar in in those stories is that how human nature has not changed any since then. I mean, even today, there are things that we'll do that probably isn't quite what God would be pleased with. But after all, he's got a sense of humor. Or after all, God knows where my heart is. At least my heart was in the right. You know, you look at you look at Saul, you know, offering the sacrifice, uh, you know, wait not waiting for Samuel, going to offer the sacrifice. I think most of us would say, Well, his heart was in the right place.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know. But but the thing is, is that there's a presumption that we make about the things of God that I think is is the the biggest plank in our eye, you know, and that is we don't get it. We don't get it because our evil inclination, we don't get it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think too, you know, when you were sharing the stories of Saul uh especially too, I saw that he really gave a valid explanation there for why he was doing the the things he was doing. So how can we um as Christians and believers discern the difference between a valid explanation and a sinful rationalization that really dodges responsibilities?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I I think the the key word there is responsibility. Um if you're not ready or willing to admit that what you did was wrong, you know, to take responsibility for having done wrong, uh you're just trying to shift the blame onto someone or something else. And um, that means you're just you are just rationalizing. And that's true, even if your explanation for why you did something is 100% true. You know, you could say this is exactly why I did the thing that I did. And you can still be 100% wrong for having done it. And you know, you need to be able to take responsibility for that. And only then are you going to understand, oh, okay, that that doesn't actually excuse what I did. Um, that that doesn't actually say, oh, oh, it's all right. I mean, don't get me wrong, explanations can be helpful. It can be beneficial to try to sort out why you did X when you should have done why, because understanding that can hopefully help you avoid doing X again in the future. And if you are the one who has been sinned against, sometimes it helps to know, well, why why did my spouse do this thing? Or or why why did this person do that thing that hurt me so much? It can it can help to understand the why. But you know, you really need to um have uh honesty and humility working in there uh to to appreciate that this is why this happened. There it it's still wrong. I shouldn't have done it even if I had real reasons why I did it.
SPEAKER_01:A few years ago I wrote an article for Clearly Caring called I Might Be Wrong. And the point of the article uh is when you're trying to determine where your excuses are coming from, we kind of work for the presumption that we've got it straight, we've got it right, we've got it logically thought out. I've I mean, I'm a very high analytical thinker, so I almost take sinful pride in it on occasion. So when you begin to look at things, you say, well, I've thought this all through, I've got it figured out. And we we always sell short that uh every inclination of the heart is evil. And so when I wrote the article, it came from a place where I'm saying, maybe instead of starting from the position that I'm right, and I should check myself out just to make sure in case I might be wrong, why didn't I start off with from the position that I might be wrong and then start evaluating what do I plan to do? And as a mental exercise, it's been very revealing for me because if every inclination of my heart is evil, which is what the Old Testament tells us, and Paul said to the Romans, the sinful mind is hostile to God, if I start with the fact that that's the way my mind works. In fact, it works so powerfully that way that the Apostle Paul said, Good that I would do that, I do not the evil, I would not do that, I keep on doing what a wretched man I am. If all of that is true, chances are pretty good I've got it wrong. I've been trying to do that a lot when I write and so forth. In other words, I get kind of done and then I start looking at the draft and going, so where's my inclination going to take me? You know, which direction am I going to go if this is wrong? And a lot of times what I end up revealing is a hidden sin, something I was trying to protect. You know, like I don't like being questioned or I don't like being challenged on these points. And those are the that's one way because when you talk about reasons and rationalizations, I mean I live by that. But it's I'm always living by sorting it out, breaking it down illogically through. Thinking it through. Which is why I want to go back to that story about Saul. When I was reading that when I was blitzing through reading the whole Bible and I got to that story, I remember reading that over again and I'm going, if I were Saul, I think I would have done that. I don't know what happened to Samuel, but we got to do something. I need God on my side, so I'm going to do that. And of course, what's my evil inclination? You know, my evil inclination says, oh yeah, God says I'm going to I'm going to take care of this for you, but I'm never quite sure. It's not going to be done the way I think it should be done. So maybe I better take over.
SPEAKER_00:There's that the talking about before about how human nature is so focused on the self and the ego and everything like that. You're thinking, well, it's all up to me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And I mean, even too, like Saul, like he's king, you know, and and when he there probably is some truth in like not wanting the people to scatter or wanting the people to think, okay, our kings got us or there's a leader here, there's probably that added pressure there as well. You know, when we think to of all of these things that we've been talking about, how does this all relate back to repentance?
SPEAKER_00:And this is you know really important. That's really the the reason for for having this discussion in the first place, because that's what we're aiming for is repentance. We're not just aiming for the people who have sinned against us so that they understand what they have done and and and say they're sorry in a way that we take as take as you know sincere enough. I mean, repentance involves sorrow over sin and taking responsibility for your sin. Rationalizing, basically saying, well, there's a good reason for what I did. It's not really my fault. That's not repentance. That's just saying, well, yeah, something went bad. I'm not happy about that, but uh it's it's not taking responsibility. And that's a problem because without repentance, you are not going to enjoy God's forgiveness for your sins. Because it's it's not that there isn't forgiveness out there, it's not that that forgiveness is is dependent or conditional upon your repenting, because of course all our sins were forgiven at the cross. But if you refuse to say, I did something wrong that I need forgiveness for, you're you're not going to be taking hold of that forgiveness and you're not going to enjoy that. It's kind of like in regular human relationships, uh, when someone gives you a non-apology apology. Well, I'm sorry you feel that way.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Or I'm sorry you misunderstood my intentions. Or I'm sorry I set you off again. I I mean, none of those are taking responsibility. You know, they're they're saying, well, I, you know, there's sorrow here. You know, I uh yeah, I I feel bad about this, but it's not feeling bad because I what I did was wrong. It's feeling bad because of the consequences of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, or you're I I feel bad because you're taking it so hard. So really the problem is with you. You know, that that's kind of how that always comes off.
SPEAKER_04:Aaron Powell Where do you see the tendency for these reasons and rationalizations playing out in daily life?
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Well, I think when you're called on the spot publicly, I think that's the first one. With social media being what it is, you do see that a lot, you know, where somebody gets called out. Uh we just prior to just going on and for recording this, we were talking about uh one of the feeds that I get. And you can see that, you know, no matter what they say, what they do, somebody's going to find fault. And you sometimes it's defensiveness, trying to say face. I've always been so ad uh admiring of people who can take insult so in stride.
SPEAKER_04:Is that not you, Bob?
SPEAKER_01:No, it's definitely not me. I I I I am so defensive, and I think it's part of my competitiveness. Well, I I wouldn't be as competitive if I weren't the firstborn male in our family, but I'm sure that somebody else is. Sounds like a rationalization there. My competitive nature it comes out. Yeah, you want to be first, you want to get it, you want to get it right, you want people to admire you for it. All these things start coming into play, and then you finally got to come to the explanation that it's rooted in sin. When Paul would rejoice because of his weakness, because it it forced him to focus on God, you know, and focus the attention on God, um, why doesn't that work for me? And it should work for me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Bob, you you mentioned, you know, responding to insults. If you really want to get down into it, where uh it is is when you are responding to either perceived insults or even worse, the insults that you assume other people would say if they were talking or have in mind, or you know, you're basically making things up in your own head, and then you're coming up with rationalizations to explain yourself for that when it's not even really necessary. But because you're doing that, you end up doubling down on your self-defenses and staying that much further away from repentance because you've you've already super invested your ego in something that where it doesn't even really need to be invested.
SPEAKER_01:You know, part of that is, you know, we've talked, I think we've talked about it on the podcast, the imposter syndrome, which is where if everybody knew my inner thoughts and so forth, they find out that I'm I'm just not as Christian as I try to portray myself to be. And pastors talk about this a lot, you know, because all of us have found ourselves preaching, you know, about topics that we wrestle with. We tell people what's the right thing to do, but we don't always practice what we preach. And that's the imposter syndrome. And when when you talk about, we get defensive or the fact that they're getting too close. So it's almost like they're they're the it's hitting too close to the mark. They're liable to find out that I'm an imposter. You know, that and and part of it is you kind of wear it on your sleeve a little bit. I rejoice in my weakness. And I, you know, it's something I'm wrestling with. Can I be needled over it? That's one of the things, you know, in polemics. You know, you find out somebody's weak spot and you start needling it. People like to do that. They like to poke at it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we we don't have an an hour to you know discuss all these things. So I'll just challenge our listeners at this point. Think of in your marriage, or think of in the relationships between you know, are you as a parent or you as a a child. Think of your workplace, you know, whether you're the boss or whether you're the employee or or or you're self-employed or or responding to a client or a customer or whatever it might be. Think of all the ways in which this tendency to offer reasons and explanations and think that somehow they excuse things or try to get somebody else to feel that it excuses things when what you really should be doing is just saying, I was wrong, and and asking forgiveness, whether it's asking God for forgiveness or asking the other person that you're dealing with for forgiveness. There are d so many ex w ways in which we do this every day. Take some time to think about that in your own life and and pursue repentance.
SPEAKER_01:And if and if you have that trouble with your spouse or you know, with your closest friend, it probably is a good indication how bad the problem is. Um because it is hard. As a husband, you know, I want to be Diane's hero in everything. I want to be her protector, I want to be her her leader and all that kind of stuff. And on occasion, I goofed. We we actually uh a funny thing, just hardly, you know, let me make an excuse. This is not a big deal, but but uh the other day I w we have a routine when I I get her out of uh getting cleaned up and getting her ready for breakfast. So I usually say, What would you like for breakfast? You know, you want French toast sticks? Would you like waffles? Would you like a um oatmeal? And I've been married to Diane long enough to know that even with the with the brain cancer, if she said she said oatmeal, I am ninety-nine point nine percent sure she really did say oatmeal, even if I heard waffles. So I d I I fixed waffles and she ate 'em. She ate 'em, she was fine. And then she said, uh she goes, Are we out of oatmeal? Why? And she goes, Well, I thought I said oatmeal. No, no, no. You probably I you said waffle. I'm probably wrong. Yeah, I mean you finally get to the point. Now, a simple thing. What is the big deal about saying you're wrong about this? But our joke always between the two of us was we're both the oldest of both of our families. So we tend to to fight not wanting to admit we're wrong. Uh and which is oftentimes, you know, why sometimes disagreements between firstborns when they're married are sometimes epic. We hold our ground and then that finally we admit we're wrong.
SPEAKER_04:Is there I I mean I understand like that maybe reasons for why we do behaviors um that that like God doesn't need our reasons, you know? And but sometimes like with other people, when when we really are like trying to explain a situation, sometimes I feel like the reason maybe does matter. Is there ever a time where it it can be valid that we give our our reason for why we did things a certain way, even if we did maybe unintentionally hurt someone?
SPEAKER_01:There's a um you know, there's a d universal dictate in scripture that we are to think of others ahead of ourselves. And I can't control what either of you think or do, and you can't control what I think I do. I can I only have control over what I do. But it is valuable for me when when my friends uh remind me in some way that if your actions had been more thoughtful, uh we probably wouldn't have been here. You know, and usually that comes out in a conflict. Uh you know, there's no human on earth that I love more than Diane. And um when we've had our spats, you know, through our marriage, you forget that on occasion. And when we when we settle it, uh usually it's kind of that truth hitting you pretty hard, that I th I should be thinking of you ahead of me. And so I should realize that. So I do think that you know I'm accountable for my own actions, you know, and and if you treat me poorly, I'm scripture says turn the other cheek. It's better to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. So sometimes doing the right thing, even when you didn't react the way I thought you were going to, I'm going to suffer for it. That's on me. I have to I still have to do the right thing. But I do think it's valuable to hear that maybe on both of our parts we weren't thinking of the other ahead of ourselves. And it's a good reminder for all of us that if if everybody were thinking of the other ahead of themselves, I think a lot of these problems kind of go away.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and the matter of you know giving giving your reasons why you did something. I mean, sometimes that can be very self-serving. It's it's getting into the rationalization or it's you know kind of puffing up your own ego a little bit. But but other times it it can be very helpful. I mean, let's say you've got a um a marriage and um the wife is uh is is somewhat insecure, you know, just just by nature, by temperament, or or whatever. And the husband has done something that offended or or or hurt her uh in some way. If he, in the process of apologizing for that and taking responsibility, explains, no, no, no, no, the reason I did this was because of you know, this thing that, you know, I came home from work in a really bad mood, or these things were going on, and or I I assumed this and it turns out to be wrong. If he explains that, then she has that information to work with instead of her just assuming he doesn't love me anymore. Or he he must really hate me, or or you know, he's probably treating me this way because he's you know he's having an affair. Yeah, you know, whatever it is, by giving the actual reasons there, you're actually help helpful. You're not trying to avoid responsibility, but you are putting uh things into a context which can be helpful.
SPEAKER_01:How often aren't those conflicts rooted in something that didn't happen between the two of you? You know, in other words, uh not all of us work with our spouses, you know. So so you you know, you'll be out in your job and she'll be out in her job. Something goes wrong in your job, and it just everything kind of feels like it's piled on you. And so you come home a little bit tied up pretty tight, and so then you you burst out at something that you normally would have been accepting. I think I would think she deserves that explanation to understand that it really is not you. It is me. And it's circumstances that you had nothing to do with. And um and that's from personal experience I can tell you that that happens.
SPEAKER_04:We live in a in a culture that often justifies sin in broader life issues, uh things like abortion, assisted suicide, or you know, other reproductive technologies. How do these public rationalizations reflect the same heart issue that we see in personal sin?
SPEAKER_00:It's hard to miss once you know to recognize it. Once you get attuned to it, you you really realize, wow, this you know, this is somebody offering something as an excuse when it's really just a rationalization. Like with abortion. Well, I'm just not ready to be a mother right now. Well, you're already a mother because you're pregnant. You know, that that that's that's not an excuse. Uh this is no time to bring a child into the world, or having a baby right now would really mess up my career. And you know, all things like that. Or with assisted suicide, well, I just don't want to be a burden to anybody. Okay, well, you're making that all about you instead of addressing the real issue of who has authority over your life and things like that, or you know, with reproductive technologies. Uh we we want to be parents, but a pregnancy just wouldn't be good for her career right now, so it makes perfect sense for us to work with a surrogate, you know, so we can get what we want. Selfish reasoning, and you're presenting it as, well, this is perfectly good valid excuse for for for what we're choosing to do. And uh so many of the arguments like that that are out there, and people will make them on behalf of others, they they really are just coming up with reasons and mistaking them for right excuses.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and uh if you understand that at the heart of every willingness to do a uh a biblical wrong, every willingness to sin is rooted in you trying to supplant God. For example, people will say, well, uh I had the abortion because I think there's already enough children in the world. And I I think it would be hard on everyone for me to keep having children. So we're going to abort this next child. Now that sounds very, I'm thinking of others, but really what you've done is it's your plan. This is your understanding of how the world should be cared for. And even if the creator of life had said that you don't have the permission to take it, only he takes the life. And but you decided, no, no, I've got a better plan because God doesn't seem to be in control, so I'm going to do it. Anytime you want to do a moral wrong, an ethical wrong that's contrary to scripture, anytime you want to do that, you gotta find yourself in the driver's seat and try to figure out how you got there, and then you gotta get out of there.
SPEAKER_04:Well, there's a lot more we could talk about on this topic, and uh but um I think we'll we'll wrap it up here now. Um any any last thoughts on this topic of reasons and rationalizations that our listeners should keep in mind?
SPEAKER_00:Aaron Powell One important one is remember the gospel. Uh remember that when you repent of your sins, there is free and full forgiveness from Christ because he went to the cross for you. It's it's there. You don't have to get hung up on that. Repent of your sins and you will have the forgiveness and just trust in that. And that's that's wonderful. But having that, then, being sensitive to the things that we're talking about, strengthen yourself against them. Read your scripture, go to church. These things not only strengthen your faith, but they they help keep your conscience attuned to God's good and perfect will, so that that that little voice inside us speaks up when you need it to, and um and and doesn't offer uh rationalizations in instead guides you towards what is right.
SPEAKER_01:The one thing I would add is it has to do with the direction you're running. Jeff had invoked Latin earlier on, the opinion legis, the opinion of the law. And the idea is that what seems to be in our nature to be performance-based. So we tend to think about sin that way. So we're always running away, trying to trying to do it, and so we t we tend to make excuses. When we trip up and we get caught into it, we want to be, you know, be perfect as your your Lord God is perfect. We want to be holy, we want to be perfect, so we're always going to make an excuse to try to say, but I'm working at it, I'm working at it. But instead of trying to run away from it, think about what you're running for, and that is God offered the greatest sacrifice of all time to save you forever, and He's given you an eternal life. And uh, so how do you show love? You know, and think of the person that you love the most in your life right now, and how the greatest pleasure you find is in doing things for them and with them and so forth. Start thinking that way about God. So when the person you love most says, I don't want you sleeping around, the person you love most says, I don't want you lying, I don't want you cheating, I don't want you, yeah, I don't, I don't want you to do that. You know, instead of glorify me in all things and so forth, that changes the way you're running. Instead of running looking down, you're running looking up. You're always looking for opportunities. Then he said, Well, the way you love me is you show it by being just, show it by being righteous, show it by giving of yourself to others. And you and there are people in our in our realm who live that way, who are incredible examples that constantly are sacrificing for the sake of others ahead of themselves. And then you look to them to be your inspiration and your models. And and then all of a sudden you find, um, yeah, I messed up, you know, but I live under the the cross. I live forgiven.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Well, thank you both for this episode, for this topic. And we also thank all of our listeners too for joining us. And if you have any questions on this, you can reach us at lifechallenges.us. We look forward to having you back next time. Thanks a lot. Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for joining us for the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it, and sharing it with friends. We're here to help. So if you have questions. On today's topic or other life issues, you can submit them as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes at lifechallenges.us or email us at podcast at ChristianLiferesources.com. You can find past episodes and other valuable information at Lifechallenges.us, so please check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit Christian LifeResources.com. May God give you wisdom, love, strength, and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
