Give Yourself A Break!

I just had a few pretty lousy days. I wasn't disciplined enough. I need to be doing more. I have responsibilities that I'm not getting fulfilled. I'm really not performing up to my own standards, and God forbid that one of you should have a look into my daily life right now. But you know what? It’s okay. It's really okay. I've made the decision that no matter how poor my personal habits, however much of a failure I feel that I have been today, regardless of how I think I have messed up my chances for God to really position me for success in life, I refuse to dwell on my performance any longer. My personal performance does not determine how much the Lord still loves me. It does not determine my future ability to grow into a man of great integrity and character. If anything, dwelling on the failures of this afternoon will do nothing more than keep me discouraged through the evening and cause me to have a terrible morning tomorrow. 

You know what? If you think that God can't use you anymore because you really did something terrible or stupid, you don't understand how great, and loving, and powerful is my God. If you think that a decision that you made last year has forever ruined your chances to have a truly happy, blessed, and successful life, you have not seen His greatness. When we spend time worrying about our past failures and mistakes, we cannot step into the new pathway that the Lord is opening for us today. To dwell on our old baggage and to believe that it has forever ruined us from success, is to say that we are far better at screwing up our lives than God is at redeeming them. This is the ultimate vanity...to make our own judgments about the ability of God to redeem our past and present circumstances. When we make our own judgments about our potential success, we always put God in a box and limit (in our minds) His ability to truly redeem us.

But God is in the business of redeeming men and women who's hearts are toward him. In fact, for us to say that God cannot make a victorious ending to our seriously flawed lives flies in the face of a mountain of testimonies in the Bible. Who were the great men and women of the Bible? What kind of people did God use? The great King David committed adultery and ignored God's directions by going live with his heathen enemies for a season. God used him to teach the whole world what it means to have a heart towards God. The Apostle Paul was a murderer guilty of executing Christians, but God used him to establish the majority of the New Testament books and teach us all about the power of the sacrifice of Jesus to save us forever from our sins. The Apostle Peter was called "Satan" by Jesus. He denied Jesus 3 times. But Jesus knew of his sin before he committed it, and told Peter that a great destiny still lie ahead for him. Moses murdered a man, and God made him the deliverer of Israel. Jacob lied, cheated, and stole, yet God chose him above his morally good brother as the lineage of the nation of Israel and of Jesus the Messiah. These are but a few of the examples of God's redeeming power. Yes indeed, His power to redeem is far greater than our power to mess things up. Would you believe that God cannot bring your life to success if he can do so with liars, cheats, murderers, adulterers, and frady cats? Maybe you are reading this and you ARE one of these terrible people. Take heart, you have examples in the Bible that prove God can redeem your life as well. There is no mistake too large. So give yourself a break! Quit listening to the lies of the enemy saying that you have committed the one sin or stupid act that can hinder your success forever. In God, there is no such thing. Let's begin having more faith in God's love and power than we do in our own weaknesses. When we are weak, then we are strong! Peace to the troubled heart.Â