Do You Ever Feel Like a Failure?
by Kay Arthur

If you are dealing with failure, know this-you are not alone.

You may feel alone . . . you may even feel like the biggest of failures.

You may think there is no recovery but, my dear friend; I have good news for you. If you have God, you have a future-and not a dismal one.

If you say there is no hope, you are listening to the father of lies (John 8:44), and you have encountered the thief who comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). Before Peter ever failed and denied his Lord, Jesus told him that He had prayed for him that his faith might not fail; and that once he turned again, he was to strengthen his brethren. There is hope, Beloved.

As we look at failure, the first thing we need to realize is that, to one degree or another, we all fail. To fail means . . .

• you didn't measure up,
• you didn't achieve your goal,
• you didn't hit the standard you or someone else had set,
• you didn't accomplish what you thought you should accomplish, what you wanted to achieve.

But as I said before, you are not alone. All those people you may look at and even envy, or wish you could change places with, have failed at one time or another. And although they may not tell you, they, too, are probably dealing with the feeling of failure to one degree or another in one or more areas of their lives.

The problem is not that we fail, but how we handle it when we do. Why can I say this?

It's because we are born into a state of failure! But that is what God is there for-that is why He sent you His Son . . . a Savior.

Romans 3:23 tells us that we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. In this verse, the word for sin means to miss the mark; in essence, we fail to be all we should be. Man was made in the image of God but man has failed to manifest His image to the world. To one degree or another, we come short of god-likeness-godliness!

But that does not have to be the end of the story. Not with God!

Listen again: "Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy . . ." (Jude 24). It is Jesus who is able to bring you out of sin . . . out of failure . . . to be all that God intended you to be. His purpose is to purchase you out of your sin, out of your failure. He is the One who rescues us from eternal death and destruction, brings us into eternal life and then protects us . . . keeps us.

This is where success and maturity in life begin-with our salvation and the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Lord will never leave us nor will He ever forsake us. That you can believe because this is what God says in Hebrews 13:5-and God does not lie.

And what do we do when we fail after we have been saved?

The first thing you must not do is to say there is no hope, no help, no way out. To say that would be to deny the power of the One who has rescued you from the greatest of all failures. "If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:31-32).

God is always there for you. To not believe this is to insult Him . . . to say God does not mean what He says and does not watch over His Word to perform it.

So what do you do when you fail after you are saved? Join me next time and I will share four precepts straight from God's Word that will give you understanding for your particular situation.

Kay Arthur
Host, Precepts For Life
Co-CEO, Precept Ministries International

Tuesday, September 01, 2009