Just yesterday I blew it. I opened my mouth and out came harsh words. This is an area that I have grown in, yet yesterday I failed. I could let this error define me. I could get discouraged and beat myself up. Here’s the thing, Christ never asked me to be perfect. He asks me to be humble and to be His. If I want to be more like Him, I must be willing to experience set backs and failure.
The only perfect person in all of scripture is Jesus. Examine all the biblical giants, you won’t see perfection. Moses failed, David failed, Abraham failed, Peter failed, Sarah failed, Rahab failed and yet, God used them all. We get so caught up in shaming ourselves when we make mistakes that we often miss the rich lessons available. I think the devil probably loves it when we waste precious time and energy stewing over our bad choices. After all, we’re not really a threat to satan if we’re hung up on insulting ourselves.
So what does a Christian do when they fail? Humble yourself before God and repent (turn from your sin). Pray and seek God. Take ownership for the harm you’ve caused. Go to the person you have harmed and ask for their forgiveness. Ask God for forgiveness, receive His forgiveness and LEARN! Here are some good questions for self evaluation:
- What did I control about my poor choice?
- What was outside of my control about that situation?
- What can I say/do to help myself resist that same sin in the future?
- What does God want me to know?
So what’s the bottom line? We need to fail FORWARD! Allow yourself to acknowledge that being human means that you are imperfect. We have a sin nature. We seek perfection because we are not perfect. We serve at the pleasure of Jesus because He is perfect.
- 2 Chronicles 7:14 “if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
- Psalm 32:5 “I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah”
- Proverbs 28:13 “He who covers his sins will not prosper, But whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.”
- Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together”, says the LORD, “Though your sins are like scarlet, They shall be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They shall be as wool.”
- Isaiah 43:25 “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins.”
- John 8:36 “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
- Ephesians 1:7-8 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.”
- Colossians 1:13-14 “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
- 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
- Romans 3:23-25 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood…”
