“And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, ‘God is tempting me.’ God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else.” (James 1:13 NLT)

The urge to “pass the buck”—that is, to blame others when you get caught doing something wrong—was one of the first byproducts of sin. Genesis 3 tells us that sin entered the world when Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit. Shortly thereafter, they heard God walking through the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day, and they hid from Him.

“Then the Lord God called to the man, ‘Where are you?’

He replied, ‘I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.’

‘Who told you that you were naked?’ the Lord God asked. ‘Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?’

The man replied, ‘It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’

Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What have you done?’

‘The serpent deceived me,’ she replied. ‘That’s why I ate it’” (verses 9–13 NLT).

First, Adam passed the buck to Eve. What happened to the Adam who said of Eve after she was created, “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man’” (Genesis 2:23 NLT)? He quickly changed his tune to “She did it!” He threw Eve under the bus and then drove it over her a couple times.

What he really did, though, was blame God. If you read between the lines, you see that he’s essentially saying, “Hey, I was just taking a nap. When I woke up, my rib was missing, and she was here. If You hadn’t created her, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Eve tried a different approach: “The devil made me do it.” Nope. The devil can’t make you do anything. He can tempt you, but you have to want what he’s offering, or the temptation won’t work. Ultimately Eve was responsible for her sin, even though she was deceived by the serpent.

You’re responsible for your sins, too—no matter what the circumstances were that led to them. The devil’s not to blame. And neither is God. (Look at those words in James 1:13 again.) We all do a pretty good job of getting ourselves into trouble because we have a sinful nature.

But if we try to shift the blame, we miss a golden opportunity to repent and receive God’s forgiveness. First John 1:9 promises that “if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness” (NLT). To claim that promise, we must take full responsibility for our sin. The verse doesn’t say, “if we incriminate others”; it says, “if we confess.”

When we take responsibility for our sin, we also set a powerful example for our kids. Or other loved ones. Or people who look to us for guidance. Through our example, we give them the courage to take responsibility for their own sin.

Reflection Question: How can you resist the temptation to pass the buck when you do something wrong?

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