Have you settled for being a “moral sinner”?

Rationalization is the gateway to ruination.

It was rationalization that Eve used to justify humanity’s first act of sin, and it’s rationalization that continues to be a primary tool for people today to attempt to justify settling for being a “moral sinner.”

In “The Sickness unto Death,” Soren Kierkegaard describes a “moment” familiar to all of us. It is the “little tiny transition from having understood to doing.” Here’s what he says about it:

… if a person does not do what is right the very second he knows it is the right thing to do — then, for a start, the knowledge comes off the boil. Next comes the question of what the will thinks of the knowledge. The will is dialectical and has underneath it the whole of man’s lower nature. If it doesn’t like the knowledge, it doesn’t immediately follow that the will goes and does the opposite of what was grasped in knowing — such strong contrasts are presumably rare; but then the will lets some time pass; there is an interim called “We’ll look into it tomorrow.”

During all this knowing becomes more and more obscured, and the lower nature more and more victorious … And then when the knowing has become duly obscured, the will and the knowing can better understand one another. Eventually they are in entire agreement, since knowing has now deserted to the side of the will and allows it to be known that what the will wants is quite right.

It isn’t that we just lie to ourselves about what we know to be true or right, we convince ourselves that our desires or positions are the truth. Stuart Strachan writes about this skill we have of persuading ourselves that want we believe is true:

When we observe evil, sinful behavior from a distance, the inclination is simply to see people as acting with malicious intent. We assume they are “bad people.” But often the motivations that lead to significant lapses in moral behavior are quite different. Because most people want to see themselves generally as “good,” they engage in a complex game of rationalizing and self-deception that enables them to perform these sinful acts. Over time, what starts as a set of questionable lies we tell ourselves becomes capital T “Truth.” An excellent example of this from history took place during the Watergate scandal. In an interview from 1975, the whistleblower of Watergate, John Dean, explains just how this worked with those involved in the scandal:

INTERVIEWER: You mean those who made up the stories were believing their own lies?

DEAN: That’s right. If you said it often enough, it would become true. When the press learned of the wire taps on newsmen and White House staffers, for example, and flat denials failed, it was claimed that this was a national security matter. I’m sure many people believed that the taps were for national security; they weren’t. That was concocted as a justification after the fact. But when they said it, you understand, they really believed it.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Lyndon Johnson was known as a master at the game of self-justification. His biographer, Robert Caro, described what would happen when Johnson came to believe something to be true, he would believe in it “totally, with absolute conviction, regardless of previous beliefs, or of the facts in the matter.”

George Reedy, an aide who witnessed the same behavior, described LBJ as having “had a remarkable capacity to convince himself that he held the principles he should hold at any given time, and there was something charming about the air of injured innocence with which he would treat anyone who brought forth evidence that he had held other views in the past. It was not an act … He had a fantastic capacity to persuade himself that the ‘truth’ which was convenient for the present was the truth and anything that conflicted with it was the prevarication of enemies. He literally willed what was in his mind to become reality.”

We use rationalization to convince ourselves the solutions we choose for the issues of life are “acceptable,” a point the Arbinger Institute’s “Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box” makes:

“Self-deception … blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we’re blind, all the ‘solutions’ we can think of will actually make matters worse. Whether at work or at home, self-deception obscures the truth about ourselves, corrupts our view of others and our circumstances, and inhibits our ability to make wise and helpful decisions. To the extent that we are self-deceived, our happiness and our leadership is compromised at every turn.”

As a result of rationalization, many people have convinced themselves it is sufficient — if not actually respectable — to settle for being “moral sinners” rather than be obedient to God’s command:

“So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, ‘You must be holy because I am holy,'” 1 Peter 1:13-16.

To that, many have a knee-jerk rationalization: “But I’m a flawed, sinful human being, I can’t be holy!”

Not by your own efforts.

BUT the life God commands of us isn’t designed by Him for us to live from our own power or capacity; God has made a way to make us holy!

“Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. But our High Priest offered himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There he waits until his enemies are humbled and made a footstool under his feet. For by that one offering he forever made perfect those who are being made holy,” Hebrews 10:11-14.

“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,” Galatians 2:20.

“When you came to Christ, you were ‘circumcised,’ but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision — the cutting away of your sinful nature. For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead,” Colossians 2:11-12.

“Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him,” Philippians 2:12-13.

Don’t deceive yourselves and settle for being a “moral sinner,” instead, “Work hard so you can present yourself to God and receive his approval. Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth,” 2 Timothy 1:15.

Scotty