RATIONALISATION: A HUMAN TENDENCY

SCRIPTURE:Instead, we have renounced shameful secret things, not walking in deceit or distorting God’s message, but in God’s sight we commend ourselves to every person’s conscience by an open display of the truth.” (2 Corinthians 4:2 (HCSB)

QUOTE: “The human brain can protect us from seeing and feeling what it believes may be too uncomfortable for us to tolerate. It can lead us to deny, defend, minimize, or rationalize away something that does not fit our worldview.” —-Bandy X Lees 

NOTE:

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they impacted all humanity by introducing sin into the world. Thus Paul wrote, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Consequently, we too tend to rationalize and blame others for the results of our own sinful actions. Ever since sin entered the world, our natural tendency is to rationalize our disobedience and to put the blame on someone else for our own sinful actions. We should be on guard against our tendency to rationalize disobedience and shift blame. When we put our faith in Jesus, we are not free from the temptation to rationalize our actions and even to blame God for our sinful decisions. However, we are free from the power of sin. As leaders, If we “walk by the Spirit” we “will not carry out the desire of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16;).

ILLUSTRATION:

The earth trembles under three things; it cannot bear up under four: a servant when he becomes king, a fool when he is stuffed with food, an unloved woman when she marries, and a servant girl when she ousts her queen. (Proverbs 30:21-23). We can see this play out with Sarah against Hagar and Abraham

Sarah became bitter and vented her wrath on Hagar. In her insecurity, she lashed out at her husband also—who had simply followed her suggestion.

REFLECTION:

  • In what specific ways do we—even as Christians—rationalize and tend to blame others for the results of our failures

TWO YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN: 1Chr 23 – 24, Psalm 48

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