Excusing Our Sin

We all know the deadly nature of sin, but we are often unaware of its subtle sidekick — the excuse.

Excuses convert the seriousness of sin into a simple shoulder shrug. “It was just a mistake on a tired night.” No big deal. Not my fault. And just like that, we downgrade our greatest offenses against God into something light, even meaningless. Instead of owning our sin, we excuse it. Instead of killing sin, we explain it away.

God has given us every reason to leave behind excuses for a far better option—confession. As ugly as our sin can get, grace allows us to abandon excuses because the promise of forgiveness and cleansing lies on the other side of confession. John reminds us of the blood-bought guarentee on the other side of confession:

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

Whenever we use excuses, we have to come to terms with the fact that we have exchanged confession for the cheap substitute of an excuse. Whatever the excuse, all of a sudden we find ourselves walking in the darkness while claiming to be in the light (1 John 1:8). We have fallen into sin, and instead of owning the sin, we walk around saying, Nothing to see here. This was not my fault. No sin here.

Every time we dismiss these sins, we miss the grace God has tailor made to cover our sins. God really does have grace to meet every failure, but receiving that grace starts by confessing the sin.

After confessing those truths to God (and to one another), we can rest, knowing 1 John 1:9 does not have a blacklist of sins that don’t receive the lavish grace God has to offer. No matter how dark things get when we throw off the excuses and expose the sin, God’s grace will shine brighter.

The good news is that God’s grace assures us that we can be the kind of people who are happy to own our shortcomings — the kind of people who have stopped hiding behind excuses.*

~Don Straka