“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” — 1 John 1:9
We all screw up from time to time in our Christian walk. We fail. Perhaps we don’t obey God’s voice, fall into an old addiction or hangup, or fail in some other way. Then the feelings of guilt and shame manifest themselves. If not dealt with appropriately, they can easily escalate to self-hatred. The pain of self-hatred can then, in some cases, lead right back to the original failure. Thus, the cycle repeats AND/OR we beat ourselves up for the next two or three weeks until we believe that we have paid enough for our sin. These two scenarios have certainly played themselves out in my life far too many times.
What about you? Can you identify with this cycle and/or the self-hatred that lasts for weeks at a time?
What is the best way to deal with failure?
The best way to deal with failure is to confess it to God immediately, receive His forgiveness (1 John 1:9), and then go right on fellowshiping with the Lord. God is not the least bit surprised by our sin or failure. He knows that we have no hope without Him. That’s why he came — not for the righteous but for sinners (Mark 2:17).
However, the temptation is to beat ourselves up as with a baseball bat until we feel that we have paid the price for our sins. The problem with this is:
- How do we know when we’ve paid enough? The truth is we can never pay enough.
- We are living under law and NOT under grace.
- Jesus already paid for ALL of our sins, past, present, and future. That’s good news! Jesus already was beat up for our sins, so we wouldn’t have to be.
Satan is the accuser and loves to bring our failures to our attention. When this happens, we have to remind him that Jesus paid for it ALL on the Cross of Calvary.
“I—yes, I alone—am the one who blots out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.” — Isaiah 43:25 NLTv1
gary lee millner.com 