Becoming a born-again Christian, being prayerful, faithful and living holy does not eliminate the certainty of adversity. Adversity is common to all, good and bad, young and matured, rich and poor. The scripture did not say “IF” it says “WHEN” implying that adversity is certain not uncertain.
“… count it all joy WHEN ye fall into divers temptations” James 1:2 KJV
“The loafer says, “There’s a lion on the loose! If I go out I’ll be eaten alive!” Proverbs 22:13 MSG
Adversity is never a reason for laziness, folding your hands, falling asleep and resigning to failure and doing nothing.
In the parable of the talents in Matthew’s gospel, the servants that had more talents, went on to be more productive and were blessed for putting their talents to work. The busy servant always gets more responsibilities. The servant who got one talent manufactured a pathetic excuse and despised his talent. He claimed his master was greedy, an extortioner who gets what he did labour for. The one talent servant was called a lazy and wicked servant by his master Jesus. (Matthew 25:26)
Whatever excuse you have for failing, there is certainly someone in your exact situation or worse, who found it rather as an inspiration and motivation to success. I have seen people whose excuse for failing was because their parents failed and have seen others whose inspiration for success was because their parents failed; exactly the same reason. The one same reason is an excuse to fail for one and an inspiration to succeed by another.
We should be mindful to differentiate between legitimate reasons and lazy excuses. Excuses give us reason to abrogate our responsibilities and justify bad behaviour both in ourselves and in our children. We justify wrong decisions, wrong choices, lack of progress and failure with an excuse.
Excuses are abstract thoughts, imaginations, strongholds in our minds that exalt themselves above the knowledge of God and work against the will of God for our lives. They paralyse and immobilise us from making progress and stop us from achieving that which God has purposed for our lives. ( Corinthians 10:4-5)
You cannot embrace an excuse and fulfil the plan of God for your life.
Sometimes you are busy binding demons and devils when the stronghold is right in your mind; you are harbouring thoughts and imaginations that are working against you. When you are full of excuses you become self-restrained and incapacitated. Excuses are lies you have believed to your own detriment and destruction. They are tools of incompetence which build moments of nothingness. Any man who embraces excuses puts a stumbling block in his own path.
Had Moses held unto his excuse as a stammerer and refused to approach Pharaoh, he could have denied the entire Jewish nation their freedom from slavery. Moses however was not able to bring the children of Israel into the promised land because of their own excuses. The entire Jewish nation embraced and believed a bad report which became a stronghold in their mind. The spies disempowered the promise of God because of a false view of themselves. They did not see themselves with the mind of God, so the people cried all night saying they were not able to take the land God promised them. Excuses can drain you out, sink you into depression and make you suicidal.
“But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there.”
“But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”
We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” Numbers 13:28,31, 33 NIV
The Israelites were not held back in the wilderness from entering the promise land by the giants but by their own excuses. The devil didn’t stop them, an excuse did.
Have you embraced a false report, whose report are you holding unto in your mind and heart? The only way to undo strongholds of falsehood in your mind is by going back to the truth of the word of God. Go back to God’s word. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”
Size is not strength and giants do fall. The Jews were intimidated by size. You don’t have be intimidated by the size of your challenge and your mountain. Goliath fell to David and mountains can be removed. The adversities and challenges of life can be surmounted if only you are willing to trust God and step out in faith at His word.
Moses survived the genocide of Pharaoh by a divine act, and God used Pharaoh to equip him with the finest of Egypt’s education; but when the time for responsibility came, Moses had an excuse, he complaint about his speech impediments and the reaction of the people and pleaded with God to use somebody else.
God equips you for the purpose he wants to use you. If God has graced and gifted you with abilities, use them, don’t exonerate yourself from taking responsibility for fear of blame.
Reject the excuse and choose to believe the report of the Lord against all odds. Believe his promises, rise up and keep fighting, there is no excuse for inaction when you have a word from God!