(35) Blameshifting - James 1:13-15

Imagine someone with a fatal disease—a disease that's fatal if it's not treated, but there is a medicine that can cure it. This guy catches the disease and goes to the doctor. The symptoms of this disease are a dry cough, loss of eyesight, and loss of hearing.

The guy has all the symptoms, but when he walks into the doctor's office and the doctor asks him about his cough, he says, "Oh, that wasn't me. What you heard out in the waiting room, that was some other guy." When he can't see the eye chart he says, "My eyesight is fine. It's just windy outside and some dust blew into my eyes right before I came in. And on the hearing test, he watches the doctor's finger on the button so he knows when to raise his hand.

You would say that man is a fool, right? He could walk out of there perfectly healthy if he would just admit he has the disease and take the medicine. But he can't bring himself to admit it, and that costs him his life.

We are exactly like that man every time we shift blame to cover for our sin.