If we do not invite Him today to live His life through us, we will discover that we have not changed, and God will use the ensuing failure to bring the point home.

Romans 7:18, For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

Because of how religion infiltrates the Church, so few have a doctrine of failure. There is one very big problem with this: We all will fail! Most are emphasizing a one-time fix, meaning that some understanding or some conference will free a person from all future conflict. It is not so with us. Our system not only allows for failure but plans for it. The Epistles are written because Christians are failing, they are not getting it, but most importantly they have moved away from their focus on Jesus. Without their failures we would not have those books. We have all learned as they did through their failures. If they learned through theirs, is it not true that we will learn from ours? Do any believe that the early Church didn’t have failures? Paul uses the occurrence of believers’ going to temple prostitutes to explain the principle of oneness. He didn’t tell them they were hopeless; he told them why they should not be doing it and to stop. Peter was a tremendous failure after being taught by Jesus for three-and-one-half years. What do we learn about soul strength in our attempts to serve God from his example? What did he learn? If you are prepared for failure, when it comes (and it will) you will not have to enter into condemnation, unbelief, and become a Galatian. The flesh doesn’t change, but that really is a beautiful thing, because if I don’t want to walk with Jesus, I will be the same mess I was before . . . well, actually worse. With Adam’s life in me, wearing sin was natural. With Christ’s life in me, wearing sin is very abnormal and miserable. The hardest thing to get across is that we are not improving, but only abiding longer. I know a man that was in a mental institution, came to see Christ as his life, and as Christ flowed from him, people could see Jesus. However, he believes in a one-time fix, and now when he isn’t abiding he still acts very psychotic, but now it is more of a Christian psychosis and more “acceptable.” Well, amen. An elephant can live up to 100 years, and the reason it dies is this: It has six set of teeth. As it wears out one set of teeth, the next set comes in, and so on until it has no teeth, can no longer eat, and it dies. We, like the elephant, have many sets of spiritual teeth for eating at different stages of our life. There are teeth for the milk of the early things and teeth for the later things, and one day we will leave this body. Until then there is always something to chew, and if we chew long enough we need a new set of teeth. We have chewed long enough on heaven vs. hell. It is time to chew on the fact that Christ is in us. As we by choice invite Him to live through us, He will today, but for today only. I am not saying He is coming and going; I am saying we must choose to relate to Him in a certain way. If we do not invite Him today to live His life through us, we will discover that we have not changed, and God will use the ensuing failure to bring the point home.

The lesser gives way to the greater.

Philippians 3:8, More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9and may be found in Him. Wow, what a statement: “I count them but rubbish.” I wonder if we believe that. What has brought you to Christ? What has been the event that took you deeper? Was it a rebellious child, an unbelieving mate, a handicap, financial difficulties, a failed marriage, or an unfulfilled dream? What was it? Did it take you to Jesus or are you stuck on self? Have you been able to count it as rubbish? Sometimes when someone is telling me his problem, I just look at him and say very sternly, “Rubbish, it is all rubbish!” It really is. The event that brought us to a deeper walk with Him is not as important as the walk. The lesser gives way to the greater. Some are just stuck at their disappointment because they have not admitted that the whole thing is rubbish. Yes, divorce is a tragedy. It is a failure on someone’s part, but we do not let a failure define us. The Lord defines us, and if He is for us then who can be against us? Simply let Him define you. Paul’s comment comes out of deep losses, and yet when he could see Jesus, those were rubbish.

Micah 6:15, You will sow but you will not reap. Hosea 8:7, For they sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind. Luke 19:22, He said to him, “By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know that I am an exacting man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow?” Galatians 6:8, For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

God is not as interested in your getting punished as He is in you.

Some sow and don’t reap, some sow and do reap, and others reap where they do not sow. Well, which is it? Actually all, in context, make perfect sense. However, I am looking at what it means to sow and reap. I believe there are three points. One, if you sow to the flesh you will reap of the flesh. I have witnessed those who sow to the flesh and in the end are given over to it to the point there is no distinction between the person and their flesh. Sin and flesh are one and the person merely manifests the sin. Second, there are those that forget that sowing is for a season. Every farmer would like it if they could sow once and reap for a lifetime. We can manipulate people by telling them that because of one mistake, they will be punished the rest of their lives. Third and finally, if you have sown to the flesh and repented, I believe that God can send a drought wherein there is no reaping and no fruit. The drought, the winter, the isolation, and the awareness of failure are not pleasant, but they keep the crop from growing. A temporary pain delivers a person from a season of pain. God is extra good to the heart that turns to Him. There is another thing that will keep a person from reaping what they have sown, and that is repentance. “Return, O faithless sons,” declares the LORD; “For I am a master to you, and I will take you one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. Then I will give you shepherds after My own heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding.” Legalism wishes to control through fear, the fear of punishment before an act and the certainty of punishment after the act. However, God is not as interested in your getting punished as He is in you. I Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”

In the grace of God, we see him rise from the ashes with a new message, THE message of Christ.

To me this question actually has two answers. First, our responsibility is to judge the message, for it always takes precedence over the messenger. Paul makes this point repeatedly, such as in Galatians 1:8, saying no matter how beautiful the messenger is, the message is what counts. “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” Again, Paul sees the message as being much more important than himself, “What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one.” Even when it came to having a messenger who had wrong motives, Paul remained interested primarily in the message. Philippians 1:17, 18, “the former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. 18What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed; and in this I rejoice.” Therefore, if the message was correct when the writer or performer was walking with Jesus, the message is still valid today, and I won’t throw it out. David had a moral failure; I will not throw out what God had clearly given him before his failure. It would be my loss. When one takes the position to discredit everything that has been said by a fallen believer, he is walking on thin ice, for God may define for him anew what fallen means. In, Galatians 5:19-21, Paul gives a description of the flesh. Who can boast that at some time in their life they have not fallen into some of these things? Who can rightly judge the messenger? Now to the second answer:
some have not promoted the message, but rather they promote themselves. It is their plan that whenever we hear their music or read a particular paragraph, their picture, not Christ’s, flashes into our minds. Paul talks about such people. II Cor. 4:5, “For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. 6For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” There are those in the business of riding on the back of Christ to create an image for themselves. They don’t make a distinction between the message and themselves. They are the proof of their message. They, in fact, believe they are propping up Jesus. The focus is constantly on them and their faith, their talent, and their cleverness. Their formula, writing, or music and how it makes them stand out is one with their image. “17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.” When such a believer falls, it is impossible to separate him from his message, for in reality he was the true message, with such a high standard set for himself and others that he will have trouble finding grace. Such a one is left having to clean up the mess on his own. In interview after interview he will try to separate himself from the message, so that the message can retain its integrity, but it is too late to separate himself from it. It becomes impossible to defend his message when it is revealed that it wasn’t THE message of Christ. People quickly abandon him. The books and the music will find their way to the trash bin, but though his reputation is also in the trash bin, the person is not! The blessing in all this is that God will use it to move him into clinging to the proper message. In the grace of God, we see him rise from the ashes with a new message, THE message of Christ. Well, amen!

“They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ And he said, ‘I heard the sound of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” Genesis 3:8-10.

Here is a secret: God does not fight our failures. He uses them! One aspect of the Glory of God is He is never undone, wringing His hands hoping that we will come through with a plan, for He always has one. He does what He wants, and He uses all things! “For My own sake, I will act . . . And My glory I will not give to another.” (Isaiah 48:11)

The Glory of God is a wonderful thing; who can comprehend it? Especially if it is hidden! God will not give His Glory to another; you are another, and therefore, a threat to the Glory of God. But how are you a threat? There is only one thing that will mask the Glory of God: a man’s own counterfeit glory–pride. This is exactly why God does not work in the midst of the self-righteous, those who are up and out. Their own glory blinds them from seeing the true Glory of God.

Adam walked with God and had his own glory. Adam was not perfect; if he had been, he would not have fallen. His imitation glory hid the true Glory. Adam’s glory allowed him to take lightly the Glory of God, so lightly that he would sell it for a piece of fruit. However, after the fall a contrast was created, and Adam could see the Glory of God, appreciate it, long for it, and seek it as something valuable. God used Adam’s failure to allow him to lose his own glory and discover the Glory of God. “For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.” (Luke 7:47)

The Prodigal Son is another example of deceitful glory. He had lived so long in the father’s house that somehow he had come to believe that he had made some significant contribution toward all he’d experienced. In the pigpen he fell out of pride into reality.

Many leaders have lived so long on the borrowed gifting of God that they start to think, in deceitful glory, that they are the source. Failure is their awakening! Oh, for the Glory of God.

The result of the fall is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

God had one Son in heaven; this Son needed a bride. God’s plan was to have many sons in heaven that would make a bride for the One Son.If man had not fallen, then the world would be perfect and populated with perfect people, but there would be no sons in heaven. It means that Jesus was not Plan B, that God is not playing catch-up to sin, Satan, and the world. Jesus was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The whole thing was in the mind of God from the beginning.

Does this mean that God is the author of sin? No, may it never be. Does it mean that God knew that putting man in a body of flesh would lead to sin? Yes. Think about it. Man is made in the image of God. What would make him submit to God? Therefore, God gives him what he wants: freedom to choose, freedom to have a kingdom, righteousness, and strength. Freedom to imitate God. The end result is that man, not God, messes the whole thing up.

However, in messing the whole thing up, man is not willing to exercise his chooser to choose God’s kingdom, glory, strength, and righteousness. It means that the defective life of man will need to be replaced. That can only happen through a new birth, and that means Christ in man and more sons in heaven.

Wonderful! Beautiful! Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God. Instead of weeping over your failure, why don’t you ask why you failed, then release yourself to God at the point of your why. The why is what He is dealing with. He knew there would be failures and He is using them. He isn’t playing catch-up with Satan. If God is for us, then who can be against us?

“and they rose up and cast Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff.”

I suppose that all of us at one time or another have had to deal with a bully. What makes people bullies is their ability to set themselves above us and intimidate. There are a variety of bullies. Physical bullies use brute strength to create the fear of being hurt and therefore control us. Intellectual bullies point out our stupidity and inferiority. Materialistic bullies make successful acquisition of possessions the focus. Religious bullies draw attention to their righteousness, making it quite clear they are grateful for not being miserable sinners and failures like the rest of us. Verbal bullies delight in their ability to speak quickly and leave us speechless in our inadequacy. The political bully understands all the intricacies of the whole world and wonders at the absurdity of our opinions. Finally, outward-appearance bullies exalt themselves because of beauty or dress, insinuating we are ugly and therefore must take our place in the proper caste system.

When discussing bullies, we must understand two points. First, we yield to the bully the power that he has over us. We, like him, falsely believe that the greatness of a person rests in strength, beauty, intellect, material possessions, self-righteousness, or a quick mind. We allow the bully to stand over us authoritatively, for we throw flowers in the parade that the bully gives himself. The proof is in statements like this: “I feel like a wimp because I got scared and didn‰t stand up to the bully.” Who said we were wimps for not standing up to those walking in the flesh? I know who says so! The bully and those of us being intimidated, and I believe both are wrong. We must not let the bullies define what is weak, strong, intellectual, or religious. If we do, we will find ourselves with false definitions. Second, the spiritual man sets the standard! The spiritual person is judged by no one but judges all things. (1Cor. 2:15, “But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man.”) The spiritual man refuses to measure up to the standard set by the carnal or to play the bullies‰ games that set themselves above to lord it over others. Rather, the spiritual man sets himself below all others, creating a contrast between himself and all bullies that puts incredible judgment on them. The spiritual operate from a definition of man that does not necessitate standing up to a bully, but rather loving and serving. To the intellectual we can say, “We are not wise in our own eyes.” To the materialistic bully, “We live as the sparrow and lilies”; to the verbal bully, “We bless”; to the quick in speech, “We boast in our weakness.” And to the religious bully, we can assert, “We trust not in our works, but in His.” By putting ourselves below the bully, rather than scraping and clamoring to reach his level, we conquer and overcome. Don‰t be intimidated by a bully, for in so doing you have fallen into his false concepts of life.

“This is the day which the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Ps. 118:24

A fellow came to see me who was suicidal. He had fallen back into a homosexual act. He is not a homosexual or there wouldn’t’ be the conviction of God after the act. However, he was ready to “check out”. He definitely wanted the most recent failure to be the last failure. He was less than a conqueror and was done trying.

I looked at him and said, “Today, Brother, is the best day of your life. There is no way that today could be better. If you had perfect victory in the past, today would not be better. In fact everything, and I mean everything, that has happened in the past, is making this the perfect day. For today God is going to deal with your……” I paused. He knew that I was going to say homosexuality. However, homosexuality was merely the cobweb, it was not the spider.

He stopped me, “There is no way that you can say today is a perfect day.” I replied, “You won’t say that in a minute. For today God is going to deal with your unbelief and self-righteousness!” It was perfect; it cut him like a knife. It was God and he knew this was the real problem.

We sat there, talked, ministered, and God dealt with the real problem of unbelief and self-righteousness. In the end, he walked out the door, so happy, with a lift in his spirit. He turned and said, “This is the best day of my life!”

You see, we just think we know the problem. It is always consequence, not the cause.

“He again fixes a certain day, ‘Today,’ saying through David after so long a time just as has been said before, ‘TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS.’” Heb 4:7

Man, for certain, possesses the present and in a measure the future. Man does not possess the past, ever! If we choose to live in the past, we choose darkness, and we exclude God. God will not move to the past with us.

Therefore, every time we venture into the past we venture there alone. In fact God calls us, always, to move from the past. To dwell in the past is to find yourself dwelling in a place where there is no hope. The Jews were in the world without a hope. That is, they were trusting on the things of the past, the law, the security of ritual and formula, neglecting what God was presenting to them in the present–Jesus.

Doesn’t it make sense that God wants to be the God of the NOW? We speak of a personal relationship. How can a relationship be personal if it is not a present relationship. To move into the past is to move away from God, and it is sin. Many today are counseled to relive the past, to mourn over it, work through it, and even warned that if they do not their life will remain in constant turmoil.

Here is my question. If the past created my problems why would I want to go back and live there again? In my office I spend up to one hour looking at the past. The lone reason, being, to understand it so we will never go back to it. Living in the past will always thwart growth. Start acting like a five year old and see how much those around enjoy you.

We are called from the past into the present. In the past you had wonderful successes and terrible failures, times of victory and times of defeat, times of great joy and unbelievable depression. Fine, now what? Today, hear his voice! The issue is today.

God says do something today and don’t live out of the past. “AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME.” Heb 3:15 You provoked Him in the past, true, but I refuse to discuss that. I want to discuss today. Yesterday is no excuse for today! Many use it as such. “I can’t love today because of emotional hurt yesterday,” “I can’t give today because of all my rejection yesterday; I need to take”, and “You wouldn’t expect that from me today if you only knew about yesterday.” As the plumber once said to the distraught lady, “Sorry, that just won’t flush”! It just doesn’t flush that past behavior and experience are keeping you away from a God who lives in the present.