Handle Sinful Failures, Biblically.
Failure hurts, but a Biblical recovery can destroy strongholds, and build great things. Repent, renew, rebuild and rejoice!
This aims to serve as a guide to recovering from the pain and separation caused by sin. To rebuilding a closer connection to our Father, demolishing strongholds of shame and inadequacy, and to reclaiming true, biblical joy.
The power of a biblical recovery from failure, requires us to first understand the word in regards to addressing failure. We will all fall as we live in a world that is already fallen, Paul summarized this very famously in his letter to the Romans:
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
Romans 3:23
Notice the use of the word all, as a word, all can be categorized as a determiner, whose definition is ‘every individual or anything of the given class, with no exceptions’. So we must understand that as much as we pursue a Christ-like life, we will fail. Now that we understand that we will fail we can take a Christian spin on the old adage:
“Failure to prepare is surely a preparation to fail”
Someone wise a long time ago
Except, we will be intentional in our preparation to fail, by knowing first that it is inevitable. We will be preparing for an obedient and spirit filled recovery from failure, and we will be doing so using four key steps.
Repent, Renew, Rebuild, Rejoice
Repent
The first, and definitely the most painful step, is repentance. We are not believers who lean on grace to justify wrongdoings, grace is a gift and through our undeserved receiving and true understanding of this gift, our desire to hurt it’s giver, disappears. Nonetheless, as we now understand, we will fail, and the first step to a biblical recovery, is to repent.
Without fully understanding what we have done, how we have failed, and how that has hurt our Father, it is impossible to repent wholeheartedly. The King James Dictionary, defines repent as follows, ‘To lament one’s actions; turn again”. True repentance requires two actions, lamentation (or grieving of ones actions), and turning again, (deciding to change away from that which caused sorrow). We must first count the cost, which can be found in Romans again:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 6:23
This is the price that should be paid by us, but has been paid for us by a God who loves us so very dearly. He loved us so much that he sent his Son, who was entirely man and entirely God, to be the ultimate sacrifice, to bear the weight of all sin, all evil, and all shame. The Son who was sent to be the lamb in our place, whose blood; when shed, was precious enough to cleanse us all of every evil we ever committed. God loves us passionately, and it pains Him when we sin because as is pulls us away from Him, sin has the consequence of ‘falling away’ to side with the world that crucified Jesus on the cross:
“If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.”
Hebrews 6:6
Once we understand the damage and severity of our actions, we have aligned our hearts to genuine repentance and have taken the first step to true biblical recovery from our failure.
Renew
Now, from the most painful part of recovery to the most wonderful. Knowing that we should have paid the price, we must now renew our appreciation of the fact that he did pay the price, and the crimson stain has been washed. This is a incredible experience, to understand not only Gods love for you, but that the debt you rightfully should have settled, has been atoned by His son. This is why it is important to first count the cost of our actions, because without knowing the severity of the punishment due, we cannot appreciate the true love of the acquittal. Let your spirit scream thanks:
“I am convinced the greatest act of love we can ever perform for people is to tell them about God’s love for them in Christ.”
Billy Graham
So far we have assessed the price we must pay, for the pain and sorrow we have caused and been freshly washed with mercy, by the grace of God. We are clean, we are free from bondage, and we are justified. Romans comes once again to embody this totally: “29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”. We are more than conquerors, we are:
Faith-filled, spirit-driven, bible-believing, heavenly-bound, glorified and justified, children of God.
You are not a failure because you failed, your identity is found in Christ, not your sins, we should look to the word to define us. Renew your understanding of what the word has to say about who, and what you are. Paul explains this so well in his letter to the Ephesians:
I am Loved
“… God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions… ” — Ephesians 2:4–5I am Holy
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” — Ephesians 1:4I am Forgiven
“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” — Ephesians 1:7
And finally,
I am a New Creation
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” —Ephesians 4:22–24
Rebuild
After counting the cost, understanding the severity of our actions, and being washed afresh with love, grace and mercy — we are ready to begin the rebuild. This is the chapter of recovery that focuses on the actionable, the practical, and the improvement. Here is where you assess the path that led to the action, and you change that path.
“Choose what you want most over what you want now, to become, the person you want to be.” — Craig Groeschel
Looking at Judges 16:1, we see one of the more ‘to the point’ statements of a person sinning in the Bible.
“One day Samson travelled to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute”
This may seem a rather extreme example, as many of our sinful failures may not involve adultery, but there is a lot that can be learnt from this short verse. It is important to consider the context not just the sentence, Gaza is 25 miles from Zorah, Samson’s hometown. Now 25 miles is roughly equivalent to 56,000 steps that Samson took, and any one of those he could have turned around. If he interrupted his journey to realign his eyes to God just once in any of the 55,999 of the steps leading to his sin, he would have been facing back to God, and would have turned his back to Gaza. God will always present an opportunity to get out.
“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” —
1 Corinthians 10:13
If you have sinned, there was likely steps that lead to the act, and in future you will likely be tempted by that sin again, we decide now, to make it difficult. We prepare for the temptation beforehand, we make a way out clear and easy, and the pursuit of the sin difficult. We should put any obstacle in the way that may delay us, and cause us to think twice, because in that moment of delay, we can turn our backs to Gaza, and look back to God. Practically this may be anything from not keeping substances in your home, placing restrictions on your phone, or even giving passwords to shopping accounts to a trusted friend, whatever the temptation, make it hard to follow.
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” — Romans 12:2
Now that actionable steps have been taken, it is time to address any untruths that you may have in your mind. In another great sermon by Craig Groeschel he states 3 steps to doing this:
1: Name your stronghold, you cannot defeat what you cannot define.
2. Declare the truth that this stronghold has already been defeated.
3. Claim God’s word as truth and speak it out whenever you feel as if you are struggling
Last year this looked something like this for me
Name my stronghold: Paranoia
Declare truth: God has given me a sound, sober mind, of reason and of clarity. Jesus defeated all demons of fear and irrationality on the cross. It is finished.
Claim God’s work: “For God gave us a spirit not to fear, but of power, and love, and self control” — 2 Timothy 1:7
Rejoice
Following in this journey we have, repented our actions and turned away from them, understood the wonder of Gods gift of salvation from a place of perfect love, and we have place barricades against the enemies weapons of untruth and temptations. Our instruction from here is a clear one:
“Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.” — Philippians 4:4
This is pretty inarguable, the combination of ‘always’ with ‘and again I say’ should remove any doubt as to God’s wishes for our actions. We, quite clearly, are to rejoice. So what does that look like:
Rejoice
[rɪˈdʒɔɪs]
- to feel or show great joy or delight.
It has always struck me that we are not instructed to he happy about stuff, or smile sometimes, as life may have you think. You may see a cute dog, or hear a funny joke, and these things may strike a feeling of happiness or laughter, but these are temporary, situational emotions. Joy is not situational, joy is a heart revelation, an understanding of enormity of the gospel and of overwhelming love of our father. We can be confident in the fact that joy is not situational by understanding that the verse above was written during Paul’s imprisonment in Rome, and his dismissal of the opportunity to escape (Acts 16:22–30).
We know we will fail in things we have to do, but we can rejoice in all that God has already done. This does not mean we cannot experience sadness or pain (for even Jesus wept), many of the Psalmists were heavily grieved and in despair. But, in their crying out to God, they were able to refocus upon Him, renew their understanding of his grace and mercy, and rejoice, even though their circumstances had not changed. It is a choice to rejoice.
