Blame 5

9-20-19 Friday

 

 

 

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The Injustice Collectors

In an article in Cosmopolitan magazine (October 1990, pp. 236-239), Susan Jacoby writes about people who profoundly believe they are always losers in the game of life. She calls them “injustice collectors.” (we would call it BLAMERS”) How do you spot such a person? There are several signs:

•They endlessly repeat how others have mistreated them.

 

•They view the world as hostile and unfair to them.

 

•They are “beachcombers of misery who see each grievance as a treasure to add to their collection.

 

•They have a hidden need to feel wrong.

 

They have a hidden need to always be right

 

They have a hidden need to always have excuses.

 

•They find it very difficult to forgive others because forgiveness is a sign of weakness.

 

•They have a competitive view of life in which others are always winning at their expense.

 

•They have difficulty maintaining close friendships. 

 

 

•They destroy their closest relationships because they have difficulty trusting other people.

Jacoby ends her article by pointing out that it’s hard to break the habit of injustice collecting, because the people who do, derive a kind of perverse satisfaction from it. Here are the final two sentences:

The injustice collector pays for that pleasure by giving up the hope of happiness. Only when we ask whether the price tag is too steep does change become possible. (p. 239)

 

 

 - 7 STOP BLAMING OTHERS

John 5:1 -9 Afterward Jesus returned to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish holy days. 2 Inside the city, near the Sheep Gate, was the pool of Bethesda, with five covered porches. 3 Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches.[b] 5 One of the men lying there had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”

8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”

9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath, 

**Notice he does not answer yes… he starts with blame. 

He was asking because it was entirely possible that the man did not want to get well.

I think Jesus is probing at the level of the will. He’s saying, “Stop blaming others for your problems. I have the power to make you well. But I will not exercise my power until you decide you want to be well. If I make you well, you can’t sit here and gossip all day. If I make you well, you can’t be a beggar anymore. If I make you well, you can’t use your illness to get special treatment at home. If I make you well, you won’t get all that sympathy anymore. There’s a price to be paid for being well. Do you want to pay it?” Once you are healed you can no longer blame!

 

 

As a family in ministry we would visit my grandma where my Dad grew up. We knew everyone in that small town and everybody knew everything about everyone. So when conversations would come up about peoples problems and them complaining about wanting their problems to go away… my grandma would famously say “everyone wants to be better but no one wants to change”. 

 

You gotta quit blaming in order to change and you gotta change in order to get healthy. 

 

What do you get by blaming others? First deal with that and fess up! Admit it and move on with God. 

 

IS JESUS SPEAKING TO YOU TODAY TO STOP BLAMING OTHERS. JUST FESS UP, I AM WHERE I AM BECAUSE OF ME - NO ONE ELSE.

LETS PRAY AND CONFESS AND GIVE CHRIST COMPLETE CONTROL OF OUR LIVES.