I came to Christianity as an adult, and there are a whole lot of disadvantages to that. I have a lot of worldly thinking to overcome. But there are a lot of advantages too. For one thing, I see through (and unfortunately, have little patience with) what I term “Biblical” excuses.
Surely you’ve heard them. They are the excuses for not doing what God has set out in His Word, covered with religious language.
Excuse 1: The Holy Spirit isn’t leading me (to evangelise, to go on a mission trip, to give, etc). If God said it, then you need to do it to the best of your ability, with much prayer and supplication. You STOP if you feel the Holy Spirit telling you to stop. (compare with Acts 16, where Paul goes to preach the Word and is stopped and turned in another direction by the Holy Spirit.) You should not need a special prompting from God to do what He commands.
Excuse 2: I’ll pray about it. This is a delaying tactic. Few actually pray about it, and hope that the other party will forget to ask. If they do, you can come up with excuse 1.
Excuse 3: I know that I should (tithe, care for the orphan, give to the poor, have more children), but God has also commanded us to be good stewards, and if I did that then I might not have enough myself. This assumes that God won’t take care of your needs, that being a good steward means having plenty for yourself, and that God just plain didn’t take into account your situation when He gave that command.
Those are my three least favourite “Biblical” excuses. What are yours?
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