“And now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” And He said, “Assuredly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.” Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them? ”And God said to Moses, “[I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God furthermore said to Moses, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is the]name for [all generations to use to call upon Me.” (Exodus 3: 10-15 NASB)
You once were late coming home after being permitted to go out with your friends. Yes, you remember those days when you realized it was way, way past your curfew and you started practicing your patented excuses. You actually sounded the words out in your mind or said them aloud openly as if you were practicing your lines for some great theatrical production. Theatrical is an appropriate word because all you were doing was trying to come up with an excuse your parents would accept because of your dramatic presentation. Now that’s theater, or more like comedy. Why comedy? Because most of the time the majority of your excuses only seemed like that worked. Perhaps you didn’t know it, but your parents were laughing silently and trying not to even smile at your creative offerings of reasons to justify you being late coming home. Oh yes, there were times that your parents acted like you convinced them and they said, “Just go to bed.” You were relieved, somewhat so. For you needed to make sure a day or two passed by after presenting your excuse, just in case that your parents were just delaying discipline, deserved for your delinquency. Conceivably, there was a time or two where your fabricated story was son convince that your excuse evoked empathy from your parents and it really worked.
In real life situations we offer all kinds of excuses, not as a cover up, but just ‘cause; because we don’t want to do it; because we don’t want to stop doing something; or at the pinnacle of situations where we come up with excuses; the time when we do not want to do the things that God wants us to do on some given occasions. Yes, we can be like Moses and offer many excuses to our supervisors, our spouses, and the saints that surround you, but if you did not pick up on it from the excerpt of Moses’ being sent to Egypt by God, read it again, and keep reading through the passage above until you complete Exodus 4. You will surely conclude that God does not want to hear your excuses. He wants you to meet His expectations. The two responses are opposites and have an inherent, incompatible relationship with each other. In other words, you cannot make excuses and meet God’s expectations at the same time. So, as the title says, “Stop With The Excuses Already!” Seek to please the Lord in all that you do! Now go ahead and have a great start to your week, keeping what you read from the Scriptures above, impacted by what you see in your search further into Exodus as recommended, and set your mind on responding in a positive way to what I have said in this short message today. Happy Monday! Love you! You’ve been prayer for this morning! Be blessed!
“And God is able to make all grace [every favor and earthly blessing] come in abundance to you, so that you may always [under all circumstances, regardless of the need] have complete sufficiency in everything [being completely self-sufficient in Him], and have an abundance for every good work and act of charity.” (2 Corinthians 9:8 Amplified Bible)
Still committed to the climb,
Mark L. King