Forgiveness or Excuses?

Excerpt from Weight of Glory - "On Forgiveness" C.S. Lewis (Capitalization and paragraph separation -my emphasis)


'I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality (unless I watch myself very carefully) asking Him to do something quite different. I am asking Him not to forgive me but to EXCUSE me. But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.


Forgiveness says--


"Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology; I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly as it was before. "


But excusing says--


"I see that you couldn't help it or didn't mean it; you weren't really to blame."


If one was not really to blame then there is nothing to forgive.


In that sense forgiveness and excusing are almost opposites.


Of course, in dozens of cases, either between God and man, or between one man and another, there may be a mixture of the two. Part of what seemed at first to be the sins turns out to be really nobody's fault and is excused; the bit that is left over is forgiven.


…. But the trouble is that what we call "asking God's forgiveness" very often really consists in asking God to ACCEPT our excuses.


What leads us into this mistake is the fact that there usually is some amount of excuse, some
"extenuating circumstances."


We are so very anxious to point these out to God (and to ourselves) that we are apt to FORGET the really important thing; that is, the bit left over, the bit which the excuses don't cover, the bit which is INEXCUSABLE but NOT, thank God, UNFORGIVEABLE . And if we forget this, we shall go away IMAGINING that we have repented and been forgiven when all that has really happened is that we have satisfied ourselves with our OWN EXCUSES. They may be very bad excuses; we are all too easily satisfied about ourselves. '

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Imagining we have repented and been forgiven when all that has really happened is that we have satisfied ourselves with our own excuses.


Come on, admit it there is truth in what Mr. Lewis is saying here, a lot of truth.


Isa 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!


Do you imagine those who believe their evil is good- truly imagine it evil? People are deceived all the time. There is so much sin today that is acceptable to mankind that is unacceptable to God and has been since forever. We've drawn a sin cloak around our lives that hides the sins in our lives so that we can feel good about ourselves and not worry that we might be sinning. We EXCUSE our sins. We make excuses all the time. If only *this* wasn't like *this* then I wouldn't do *this*. If only I lived in a monastery I wouldn't have all these temptations around me. If only Soandso didn't do this or that, I wouldn't do this and that. It's horrible but we do it all the time and we've begun to do it on a subconscious level too. We tell ourselves- God understands. Haven't you done that before? Truthfully, haven't you thought those words before? Why do we do this? We do it because we believe if we don't then we'll NEVER have any hope of being God's. We call it giving ourselves hope. Am I excusing it? NO! I'm naming it. It's a FALSE hope, but we grasp onto it and hold it tightly in this tornado of sin whirling about our lives. Wouldn't it be better if we let go of false hope and released ourselves into the reality of the sin in our lives and TRUST in our LORD to save us. We have to stop trusting in ourselves to save ourselves. Our hope can't be in our goodness, but in HIS. We have to truly start looking at the sin in our lives as the deadly poison it is. Only when we stop making excuses will we be able to seek true forgiveness. Lay it all on the table as the saying goes. Put it all out there without any excuses and seek to repent and ask for the only path to true life we have- forgiveness from our Savior. Our Savior seeing us covered in vile, poisonous, deadly sins and choosing to give us forgiveness because we know only HE can save us, His blood covers our sins. We don't cover our sins, He covers them in His blood. We need the poison covered by the anti-venom of Christ's holy blood.


It's not easy to take stock in our lives. It's not easy at all. Not easy but a necessity.


May God help us all. We live in a world where satan and all his helpers are more than willing to give us delusions of ourselves. Please Lord, help us remove the blinders to the sin in our lives. Help us precious Savior to keep from excusing the sin in our lives. We throw ourselves at your merciful feet. Bless us Lord, please…bless us.


By Your Grace!



Amen.