“When you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen and build up the faith of your brothers.”
Luke 22:32 (TLB) When you’re in the middle of a failure, it can seem like nothing good will ever come from it. But God can always bring good from your failures. In fact, your worst failure can become your greatest success. If you let him, God will use your failures to build his church! Jesus told Peter in Luke 22:32, “When you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen and build up the faith of your brothers” (TLB). Before Peter had even failed, Jesus gave him a vision of how God could use his failure for good. After Peter’s failure (when he denied Jesus three times), Jesus died and then was resurrected. And when he and Peter met again on a seashore, Jesus reminded Peter of how good could come from his failure. Here’s how the conversation went: “Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he said, ‘you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Feed my lambs.’ Again Jesus said, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He answered, ‘Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Take care of my sheep.’ The third time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ He said, ‘Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Feed my sheep’” (John 21:15-17 NIV). Three times Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” Why did he ask that three times? He was giving Peter the opportunity to make up for the three times he had denied Jesus. And each time, Jesus gave Peter another way he could use his failure for good: “Feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” On the same night that Peter had denied Jesus, another disciple, Judas, also failed Jesus. But, ultimately, Judas chose to become a traitor to Jesus, while Peter chose to become a teacher and a leader of Jesus’ church. In Matthew 16:18 Jesus says, “Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it” (NLT). God is building his church on people who’ve failed. In fact, God only uses failed people—because there aren’t any perfect people! What are you going to become from your failure? It’s your choice.
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“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Lamentations 3:22-23 (ESV) Failure can be isolating. When you’re in the middle of a failure, you often feel ashamed and just want to be alone. But Jesus is with you always, even in your greatest failure. To help you through your failures, Jesus does three incredible things: Jesus prays for you. Even before Peter had failed, Jesus told him, “I have prayed for you, that your faith will not fail” (Luke 22:32 NASB). Even at this very moment, Jesus is interceding—praying—for you. The Bible says, “He is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf” (Hebrews 7:25 NLT). Jesus believes in you. In fact, he expects you to heal and recover. That’s why he told Peter before his big failure, “When you have repented and turned to me again . . .” (Luke 22:32 TLB). Jesus knew Peter would sin and fail and eventually come back to him. The truth is that we all fail, and we fail repeatedly. Your biggest weaknesses are habitual. You don’t just do them one time and that’s it. You do them over and over. But God isn’t there just for the big, one-time mess-up. He’s there for the mistakes you make over and over again. Though you fail repeatedly, God will always believe in you. Jesus shows you mercy. Jesus is more willing to show mercy than you’re willing to ask for it. When you’re down, Jesus doesn’t beat you up or add to your guilt. Instead, he saves you. In John 21, just weeks after Peter had denied Jesus, Peter and some other disciples went fishing. Though they fished all night, they caught nothing. At dawn, Jesus called to them from the shore and told them where to throw their nets. “So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it” (John 21:6 NLT). When Peter followed Jesus’ instructions, he caught more fish than he could possibly handle. Jesus is ready to do the same for you. He can do more in five minutes of your life than you can do in 50 years of planning. Here’s more good news: God’s mercy toward you is not dependent on your performance. The Bible says in Lamentations 3:22-23, “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (ESV). Friend, you may give up on God, but he’s never going to give up on you. Jesus is praying for you, believes in you, and will always show you mercy. No matter what you do, God is faithful. “Immediately a rooster crowed, and Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken, ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly.”
Matthew 26:74-75 (CSB) When you experience failure, sometimes it feels like you’ll never recover. But you will. Whether you’ve experienced failure in finances, marriage, career, or something else, you can recover. Recovery starts with grieving your failure. Don’t minimize it or pretend it didn’t happen. Don’t rush to try to feel better. Instead, take the time to feel the pain. This highlights an important life principle: To get past it, you’ve got to go through it. That’s true in so many areas of life, but it’s particularly true with failure. Grief is the way to go through the failure. When you fail, you just want to forget it, to stuff your emotions and quickly go to the next thing. But that’s a mistake. Grief is the way you learn failure’s lessons. When you swallow your emotions instead of going through them, your stomach keeps score. It’s like taking a can of soda, shaking it up, and putting it in the freezer. It’s eventually going to explode! Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples, experienced the grief of failure firsthand. In a time of crisis, he denied that he even knew Jesus, and that failure led to deep grief. The Bible says, “Immediately a rooster crowed, and Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken, ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:74-75 CSB). Imagine how disappointed Peter must have felt. He had walked alongside Jesus, watching him teach, do miracles, heal people, raise the dead, and offer mercy and forgiveness over and over again. Yet the first time he was put to the test about his commitment to Jesus, he denied him three times in a row. But instead of ignoring his failure, Peter did the right thing: He was humble and regretful. He owned up to his failure and grieved—and that’s the key to healing. Many people want to take shortcuts when they have a failure. They want to bypass the affair and pretend it didn’t shatter their marriage, so they rebound into another relationship. Or they pretend it was someone else’s fault the business failed and start another one the next day. They simply never learn the lesson. But there is no shortcut to grieving and recovering from failure. The greater the failure in your life, the more time it’s going to take to heal. Let God work in your heart. You can’t force healing. Recovery is an act of God’s mercy, and it will come in time. “It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you, but if you trust the LORD, you are safe.”
Proverbs 29:25 (GNT) Every time you make a decision based on what other people will think, you sow seeds for failure in your life. You may not realize it, but fearing the disapproval of others causes more problems in your life than almost anything else. When you worry about what other people think, you tend to do the popular thing, even if you know it’s wrong. You make commitments that you can’t possibly keep, simply because you’re trying to make everybody happy. This is a recipe for failure. And it’s one of the reasons Peter failed Jesus by denying him three times. He was more concerned with what other people thought than with being faithful to Jesus. The Bible says, “But Peter followed along at a distance and came to the courtyard of the high priest’s palace. He went in and sat down with the guards to see what was going to happen . . . While Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, a servant girl came up to him and said, ‘You were with Jesus from Galilee.’ But in front of everyone Peter said, ‘That isn’t so! I don’t know what you are talking about!’” (Matthew 26:58, 69-70 CEV). Peter had just spent three years with Jesus, the Son of God. But the first time he had a chance to acknowledge this privilege, instead he denied Jesus. Peter was more worried about what other people thought than he was about identifying with Christ. Think of how many times you’ve had the opportunity to share Christ and said nothing because you were worried about what other people would think. Whose opinion matters to you more than God’s? When you let someone else be more important than God, they become your god. That’s called an idol—and that’s a setup for failure. The fear of disapproval always comes from a hidden wound. Maybe it was a rejection in the past. It might be an unmet need or a trauma you experienced growing up. It’s a deep pain, so deep it’s hidden in you. I call it soul pain. That soul pain is always related to your identity. If you don’t know who you are, you will be manipulated by the disapproval of other people the rest of your life. You won’t stand up for what you believe or do what’s right. The Bible says in Proverbs 29:25, “It is dangerous to be concerned with what others think of you, but if you trust the LORD, you are safe” (GNT). When you recognize the hidden wounds in your life, God can begin to heal them. And you can live in the freedom of knowing that God’s opinion matters most. “These sufferings of ours are for your benefit. And the more of you who are won to Christ, the more there are to thank him for his great kindness, and the more the Lord is glorified.”
2 Corinthians 4:15 (TLB) When you use your pain to help others, God will bless you in ways you can’t possibly imagine. The Apostle Paul went through enormous pain in his life, which is why God was able to use him in enormous ways. He was shipwrecked, beaten, and robbed. He went without food, water, and sleep. Yet God used him to spread the Gospel throughout the Roman Empire. In fact, if you were to ask Paul, “How’d you put up with so much pain?” He’d tell you it was because he wanted to bring people to Jesus Christ. He wanted to help others. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:15, “These sufferings of ours are for your benefit. And the more of you who are won to Christ, the more there are to thank him for his great kindness, and the more the Lord is glorified” (TLB). You may never suffer the same ways Paul did, but you will go through pain in life. So you might as well use your pain for good and not waste it. There are actually three kinds of suffering God uses to help others: self-imposed suffering, innocent suffering, and redemptive suffering. Some suffering is the kind you bring upon yourself. You cause some of your own problems by making poor judgements. You don’t always eat the right foods, make the right decisions, or respond the right way to others. Innocent suffering is when, through no fault of your own, you get hurt by someone else. Whether you were abandoned, rejected, or scammed, everyone has been hurt by the sins of other people. But the highest form of suffering is redemptive suffering. This is when you go through pain or problems for the benefit of others. This is what Jesus did. When Jesus died on the cross, he didn’t deserve to die. He went through that pain for your benefit so that you can be saved and go to heaven. In the same way, God will use your pain to bring hope and healing to others. Who can better help somebody going through a bankruptcy than somebody who went through a bankruptcy? Who can better help somebody struggling with an addiction than somebody who’s struggled with an addiction? Who can better help parents of a special needs child than parents who raised a special needs child? Who can better help somebody who’s lost a child than somebody who lost a child? God will never waste a hurt. God will work in your life so that he can work through you to encourage others. Praise God and rejoice during a trial, because suffering will build your endurance and help others in their pain. God can use all three kinds of suffering for good. Start by giving each of your hurts to him and say, “God, I want you to use my pain to benefit others.” “Since God in His mercy has given us this ministry, we do not lose heart.”
2 Corinthians 4:1 (BSB) You were created to make a contribution with your life, not to just exist and live only for yourself. God shaped you to serve him, and it’s all because of his mercy. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:1: “Since God in His mercy has given us this ministry, we do not lose heart” (BSB). Some people think “ministry” is a churchy word. It’s something only ministers do. But anytime you use the talents, gifts, and abilities God has given you to help somebody else, you’re doing ministry. Even your job can be your ministry—whether you’re an accountant, teacher, or truck driver! When you understand that everything God does through you is because of his mercy, two things happen: You don’t have to prove your worth. Do you ever try to prove your worth through your work? Maybe you think that the more successful you are, the more valuable you are. But your worth has nothing to do with your work. Instead, your worth is found in the fact that God made you, loves you, and sent Jesus to die for you. Understanding God’s mercy takes you off the performance track. You don’t have to wallow in your mistakes. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all sinned. But because of God’s mercy, you don’t have to dwell on your past. You can repent and turn away from your sin. Your past doesn’t have to hold you back from doing the work God has given you to do. In fact, God has never used a perfect person—because there aren’t any, except for Jesus Christ. When you look through the Bible, you’ll find all kinds of people who God used despite their mistakes. Jacob was a chronic liar; Rahab was a prostitute; Jonah was fearful and reluctant; Martha worried a lot; the Samaritan woman had several failed marriages; Peter was impulsive; Moses, David, and Paul were all guilty of murder. Yet God used each person in incredible ways. So there’s nothing that would prevent God from using you. Because of God’s great mercy, you can live out God’s purpose for your life. “Someone's thoughts may be as deep as the ocean, but if you are smart, you will discover them.”
Proverbs 20:5 (CEV) Today’s confidence builder is this: You can help lead anyone to Jesus if you’ll just listen for the key to their heart. What is the key to someone’s heart? It’s their hidden hurt or unmet need. We all have secrets in our lives, things we don’t want other people to know about. “Yes, all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious ideal” (Romans 3:23 TLB). But when you’re able to discern a person’s struggles by listening to their heart, you’ve just discovered how to lead them to Jesus. The Bible says, “Someone’s thoughts may be as deep as the ocean, but if you are smart, you will discover them” (Proverbs 20:5 CEV). Keep in mind, there’s only one way to God the Father, and that is through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6 NIV). But there are many reasons people come to Jesus. Some people come to Jesus for a miracle or to get a question answered. Some come to Jesus out of loneliness, guilt, or fear. Others are looking for purpose in life. Still others are in the middle of a relational or financial crisis. There are a thousand different reasons people are drawn to God. Stress, pain, and suffering always have a way of getting your attention. Whatever the reason, don’t waste any opportunity to show people that all their answers and longings are found and fulfilled in Jesus. If you want to reach a particular person for the Lord, find the key to their heart by opening up a life-changing conversation with them. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”
Matthew 28:18-19 (NIV) One thing is made very clear in Scripture: God wants you to tell people the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ. In fact, some of the first and last recorded words of Jesus were about sharing the hope you have in him. In Matthew 4:19, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus gathered a small group of fishermen and carpenters—just ordinary people—and said, “Follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” (NLT) These were some of the very first words Jesus spoke to his followers. Do you see Jesus’ logic in that verse? If you’re not fishing for people, then you’re not really following him. The proof that you are truly in God’s family is that you’re bringing other people into the family. Later in the book of Matthew, Jesus talked again about sharing your hope. This passage is called the Great Commission. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18-19 NIV). These were some of the very last words of Jesus before he went back to heaven. Why does Jesus have “all authority in heaven and on earth”? Because he created the universe, so he’s been given all authority over it. Jesus authorizes you to go make disciples. This means you are God’s agent! Is anyone going to be in heaven because of you? Have you ever led anybody to faith in Christ? Follow the first and last words of Jesus, and people will one day say to you in heaven, “Thank you! I’m in heaven today because of you.” “Many will see what he has done and be amazed. They will put their trust in the LORD.”
Psalm 40:3 (NLT) Because of Jesus, you can have your past forgiven, have a purpose for living, and have a home in heaven. Telling others about this hope you have in Jesus is the most loving thing you can do. Jesus said, “Wherever you go in the world, tell everyone the Good News” (Mark 16:15 GW). Have you ever led someone to faith in Christ? Whether it’s someone in your neighborhood, at the office, or in your own family, bringing someone into the family of God is the greatest thing you can do. If you’re not sure how to share the hope you have in Jesus, here are six practical steps to get you started. Live it. Long before you talk about your faith, you should live it. The Bible says in 1 Peter 2:12, “Live properly among your unbelieving neighbors . . . They will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God” (NLT). If people like what they see in you, they are more likely to listen to what you say. Learn it. You could know about the hope that is in you and still have a hard time expressing it. But 1 Peter 3:15-16 says, “Be ready at all times to answer anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have in you, but do it with gentleness and respect” (GNT). As people see something different about your life, you need to be ready when they ask, “Why do you live the way you do?” And then you share “with gentleness and respect.” Apologize for not sharing sooner. There may be people in your life you’ve known for 10, 20, or even 30 years. How do you break the ice and talk about Jesus with people you’ve known for a long time? You apologize and say, “You’ve been a good friend for a long time, but for some reason, I haven’t told you about the most important thing in my life. I’m sorry. I wish I had told you sooner.” You’ve known them long enough to know you don’t want to spend eternity without them. Listen first. Every person on this planet has a deep hunger to be heard, to be understood, and to have their feelings validated. Proverbs 18:13 says, “Listen before you answer” (GNT). Your ear is a great tool for showing love to someone. When you listen to another person, you can find the key to their heart. Share your stories. Notice “stories,” not “story.” Why? Because you have many stories, or testimonies. A lot of people think they only have one testimony—the testimony of how they came to Christ. But has God ever helped you with a financial, relational, or health problem? You have hundreds of powerful testimonies that can point people to Jesus. Bring people to worship. One of the best ways you can share the Good News is to bring people to church. As they walk into a service, they will see many believers coming together, worshiping God, and believing the same thing. Acts 2:47 says, “At the same time, they praised God and had the good will of all the people. Every day the Lord saved people, and they were added to the group” (GW). Most people don’t know about the hope that Jesus Christ gives, and so they are spiritually empty. What step can you take today to bring someone into the family of God? “We are . . . Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”
2 Corinthians 5:20 (NIV) Your job in God’s family is to invite others to join the family. In fact, you are an ambassador of Christ. That means that, everywhere you go, you represent Jesus. The Bible says, “We are . . . Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Corinthians 5:20 NIV). Now, you may be thinking, “I’m just not qualified to be an ambassador for Christ.” You think it requires a special personality or being good at persuading people. Or perhaps you struggle to find the confidence you need to tell people about the hope you have in Jesus. Here are five truths that will give you confidence to be an ambassador for Jesus Christ: Everybody has the same longings you have. You didn’t stop being a human when you were born again into the family of God. You still have the same basic human drives and desires everyone else does. That means what you’re offering to people—how to live a life of purpose—is what everybody longs for. Everybody has the same questions you have. All those questions you have in your mind—like “Who am I?” and “Does my life have purpose?”—are from God. They’re not small questions, but they’re the questions everyone asks. And the answers, of course, are found in God’s Word. Most people don’t really know what they believe, and they often contradict themselves. For example, some people say there are no absolutes in life. Well, that statement alone is an absolute statement. But when you share the hope of Jesus, it brings clarity to people’s lives. Listen for the key that will open their heart to Jesus. That key is their unmet need or hidden hurt. The only way to God is through Jesus Christ. But people come to Jesus for many reasons—many times through their painful experiences. People have excuses, but you have the Holy Spirit and the truth. You’re not alone when you tell people about God’s plan of salvation through Jesus. God is with you, but he is also working in the other person’s heart while you’re talking through the Holy Spirit. So many times, people lack confidence in sharing their faith. The good news is, God will always tell you what to say when you need to say it—and he’ll do it in such an amazing way! |
AuthorTaken from Daily Hope by Rick Warren. Categories
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