Taking Responsibility for Your Mistakes

In Genesis 3, Eve thought that eating the fruit of the forbidden tree would make her wise. Verse 6 says, “She took of its fruit and ate; and she gave some also to her husband, and he ate.”

Now, Adam could have done what God told him to do and refused it, but instead, he took the fruit and ate it. And then when God showed up, all kinds of finger pointing started.

Adam says in verse 12, “The woman whom You gave to be with me―she gave me [fruit] from the tree, and I ate.” Now let’s look at verse 13: “God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled (cheated, outwitted, and deceived) me, and I ate.”

Neither one of them was willing to take responsibility for their actions.

All That God Expects from Me and You

Frankly, I like it when people own up to their mistakes. Don’t you? I mean, it actually makes it a lot easier to forgive them and move on.

Well, it’s the same with God. When we make mistakes, all He wants us to do is take responsibility and be honest. The first person we have to be honest with is ourselves.

Part of my time with God is meeting with me―taking an inventory of my thoughts and attitudes because I want to be free. I don’t want to carry around those heavy burdens anymore. We need to ask ourselves questions like, “How easily do I get offended?” “How much time do I really spend in the Word?” “How much of my time do I spend trying to make other people happy?”

Changing my attitude has made my life so much better and it’s opened the door for God to bless me in a lot of ways. And I want to encourage you to apply God’s Word to your life because it will bless you too.

If you find yourself in a bad temper, God doesn’t want you to try to hide it from Him or act like it doesn’t exist. And He won’t be impressed if you put the blame on somebody else. Just face the truth, ask God to help you…and move on.