As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: 11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. 12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
The Scripture text tells us our condition without Christ, but unfortunately many Christians hang unto this passage as an excuse to continue to live wrong. They go about with their bad attitudes, they gossip, bad mouth people and tell people off using this claim to their fame –“I just can’t help it, that’s the way I am.”
The children of Israel could use that excuse as well – “We were slaves for over four hundred years, so what do you expect from us?”
Many today use their past and the depraved condition of all people to excuse their present actions. They may be Christian but they are certainly living below their ability and calling. Paul says, “Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called.” This means to live according to God’s way as a member of His family. How many a person has soiled the family name by their life style? Mothers and fathers live a good life, pay their bills on time, treat others properly, are good citizens in society and along comes a child or children who bring shame to that name. Many a child has had to outlive their parents in order to establish a “good name”.
Using the excuse that “you cannot help it, that’s the way you are”, is just that – an excuse. An excuse is defined as “a skin of a reason stuffed full of lies.” God tells us through Peter’s letter, “Be ye holy for I am Holy.” The only reason He can demand holiness from us is that He is holy and it is His Spirit that indwells the Christian. If it is impossible to live above these beggarly levels of life, then they must be more powerful than God; then God is not all powerful.
The good news is that God is all powerful and the blood of Christ not only washes away our sin, but enables us to live a holy life by making the reality of the Holy Spirit present in our very life. We live right not in our own power, but in the power of God – His Holy Spirit. So, if we are saying we cannot help but have bad attitudes, gossip, tell others off or use anger as a controlling tool and so on, then maybe we are saying that we are not really Christian.
There was a young man who lived in the early twentieth century in the days when automatic furnaces were not realized yet and the form of heat was that of the coal stoves or kitchen wood stoves. This young man (an early teenager) would have to rise early in the morning to bring in coal or fire wood and get the stove going and soon the house would be warm. His mother could then make breakfast for him (his father was deceased and he was the oldest). One morning when his mother came to his room to awaken him and say, “It’s a beautiful day”, he complained that he did not want to get up and it wasn’t a beautiful day. His mother replied, “Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, go back to sleep.” This young man thought, “If I had known it would be that easy, I would have done that long ago.” He rolled over and went back to sleep. He awakened later to the smell of breakfast and he felt the warmth in the house. He got up, got dressed and went downstairs for something to eat. When he entered the kitchen, his mother told him, “You said it was not a beautiful day and it is my job to be sure it is not a beautiful day; you cannot have anything to eat and you must go back to your room.” He went back to his room, lay down and slept some more. But you can only sleep so much and so the day drug on and into the night. The next morning when his mother opened the door, he was dressed and sitting on the side of his bed and said, “Mom, it going to be a beautiful day!”
We do have control over our attitudes and actions. God has given us the Person of His Holy Spirit to indwell us so that we can obey His commands and live according to them.
If you continue to use the excuse that you just can’t help it, then you need to examine your relationship with the Lord.