Failing God

God never fails!  What He establishes will stand, for His Word endures forever.  The only way I can fail God is if He fails me, for any good in me springs from Him! Though man is feeble, frail, and makes mistakes in abundance, a Christian is not to view himself as a failure.  A dead man cannot fail because a dead man cannot do.  It is God who works in us both to will and do according to His good pleasure.  A man sees himself as a failure when he believes God depends on him in some way, or that he is able to help God in his own strength.  The reality is God has raised me from death to life in Him.  If we are disappointed in ourselves it shows we have trusted in our own strength.  God is the one who makes the dead rise alive for eternity, and it is in Him we live, breathe, and have our being.  What He has cleansed, redeemed, empowered, and indwelt we should not call a failure.

Praise God He does not condemn us as sinners after He has paid our debts through His shed blood!  Church ought to be a place not where sinning is promoted, but where sinners are welcome.  God does not fault us for being ourselves, yet He does not free us from the responsibility to live in holiness:  "Be holy, for I am holy."  He whom Christ sets free He sets free indeed - not only from sin and death, but from guilt and shame.  Let us follow Jesus confident in Him as we humbly trust!  Can we fail if it is He who does the work?