WHO'S TO BLAME?

BLAMESHIFTING DISCOUNTS GOD’S STRENGTHENING

Friday, September 13, 2019

James (GW) 1:20-27 An angry person doesn't do what God approves of. So get rid of all immoral behavior and all the wicked things you do. Humbly accept the word that God has placed in you. This word can save you. Do what God's word says. Don't merely listen to it, or you will fool yourselves. If someone listens to God's word but doesn't do what it says, he is like a person who looks at his face in a mirror, studies his features, goes away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. However, the person who continues to study God's perfect teachings that make people free and who remains committed to them will be blessed. People like that don't merely listen and forget; they actually do what God's teachings say. If a person thinks that he is religious but can't control his tongue, he is fooling himself. That person's religion is worthless. Pure, unstained religion [Rom.12:1-3, observance of worship through living. EBB4], according to God our Father, is to take care of orphans and widows when they suffer and to remain uncorrupted by this world. [Commandments 1 & 2; Love God, love people.]

  Blame shifting is employment of not taking responsibility for our individual exercise of free will, a “Through no fault of mine.” artificial life. This includes blaming God for problems while not examining self.

  This is but yet another lesson emphasized by Grandmother McGee that fell on my cute little ego-centric deaf ears surrounded by curls. I can still hear her sternly asking “If Jim stuck his head in a furnace, would you?!” . . . which at the time I considered a stupid question from an old person.

  Beginning with Grandmother’s words, through the years since ears opened and much hair gone with remainder silver, I’ve added additional beneficial thoughts and questions:

• When reading or hearing God’s Word think of personal application about my responsibilities.
• Ask God’s Holy Spirit to fluorescently alert me when it is I that am part, most of, or all of a problem. This must include when absolutely right with a smug attitude!
• Especially listen for thoughts or verbalizing “See now what you’ve made me do!” (One of my favorite questions in jail was “Do you think anyone here is capable of making me angry?” while standing before the meanest most brutish looking man in class. The following question being “Is anyone, including God, capable of making me love you?”)
• Does/did blame shifting accomplish or circumvent healthy goals?
• When in silent or verbal blame shifting mode, am I teachable?
• Emulating the first blame shifters (Gen. chapter 3), is my simplistic knee-jerk reaction to always blame God or someone else?
• Consider what blame shifting has cost the first two shifters, Adam and Eve, and all since.
• What has blame shifting cost me in my life?
• What has blame shifting cost others inn my life?
• If I blame God or others does it relieve me of my faulty contributions to this world?
• Am I learning from wise experienced elders, or am I shifting away from personal maturation?
• If my life is typified by blaming God and/or others . . . am I edifying or otherwise?
• Is my blame shifting better reasoned Avoidance & Manipulation?
• And last on my list, but absolutely the most important, Jesus was contrarian; He took all the blame. (1Pet.2:24) 

  Now, lest the above review make for a gloomy day, remember whose day it is (Ps.118:24); family ours (Jn.1:12); and His loving forgiveness (1John 1:9).

EBB4