IS EXCELLENCE A PIPE DREAM?,

PART 2 OF "WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU MESS UP?"

Let’s start out with a little review from Part 1 of this topic. We all mess up, we are all imperfect. BUT, if you are a born again Christian you are on the path to becoming more like Jesus who was perfect. I have no doubt we can all agree with old Job,

 

Job 5:7   Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

So what should we do when we mess up? I am convinced that God laid out all the “how to’s” for how His creation is supposed to be. It is our responsibility to, by His grace and power, follow that plan. It will lead to life and great long term resolutions of the consequences of our words and actions. If you are just “looking out for number one” (yourself) your pride will rule and your failure is guaranteed (see Proverbs 16:8) As hard as it may seem, we really need to follow thru with the steps listed below::

1.   Man Up and confess your fault.

2.    Accept responsibility for the consequences

3.   Experience Godly sorrow that brings repentance and will motivate you to do everything you can to make things right (2 Cor 7:11)

4.   Seek God for the power to change, for the power to become what God created you to be. You are a new creature in Christ (2Cor.5:17), Jesus will make you to become…(Mark 1:17) and the infinite power of the Holy Ghost is God’s gift to the believer (Acts 1:8)

If you have tried to change , to consistently do what is right, to become more like Jesus, by using your own will power than I am certain you have experienced frustration, I sure have. I have a confession to make, I am tired of making the same mistakes over and over again. I am also tired of hearing people say, “OK, my bad” and then going on as if nothing happened and nothing needs to change going forward. It is time we learn to apprehend the grace of God and accept His power to change, His grace to do everything necessary to make things right. He will provide every dollar, every ounce of strength, every bit of intestinal fortitude we ever need to accomplish anything He leads us to do.

Mark 10:27…   Jesus looked at them intently and said,
“Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”

I attended a simulcast of a men’s conference recently, with teaching from a preacher named Erik Luny. Check out http://www.ellerslie.com He spoke on numerous topics and made many of the same points you read in my previous blog; except in great detail and with numerous analogies. I was excited by this gravity\flight analogy. Pastor Erik taught that we can compare walking in the flesh vs. walking in the Spirit to the law of gravity vs. the law of aerodynamics. Gravity says flight is impossible – aerodynamics proves they can. Does this not echo Mark 10:27?

Let’s take a look at some points made in Romans chapters 7 & 8. The struggle and the victory that Paul so passionately exclaimed is often misunderstood, over complicated and polluted by the intellectual looking for an excuse to continue in sin.

Rom.7:4   So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.

5   When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. 

6   But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.

Do you see the contrast? Coming to Christ frees one from the power of the law, from the control of our old nature, from those evil desires that bound us in the garbage can of what we called life. We are reckoned dead and born to real life, the life we have in Christ, walking in the Spirit. Excellence in how we live is within our grasp and applies to every aspect of life. Let me say that again, Excellence in every aspect of life is within the grasp of the believer because we are dead to self and alive to God, empowered not by dead flesh that seeks its own, but by the Spirit of the Living God who inhabits the believer.

The seeming contradiction is what we saw too much of in the latter part of the last century. Many big name Christian leaders fell into sin, causing many well intentioned believers to become disillusioned. I boldly declare that this is no contradiction at all but is, by definition, the struggle exemplified. When someone falls, it is because they yielded to the old man, to the flesh and the enemy of our souls whose name I refrain from mentioning. They came to a fork in the road and willfully and intentionally went the wrong way. They took the gravity route instead of aerodynamics.

 

Rom. 7:24   Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 

25    Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom. 8:1   So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.

2   And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.

5   Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.

6   So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

7   For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will.

8   That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.

9   But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you.

Walking in the Spirit and experiencing the Manifest Presence of God has been my passion since getting saved at a Christian commune in 1971. It was a Pentecostal ministry and I have considered myself to be a Pentecostal ever since. It is thrilling to know that the power that defines the term Pentecostal is a gift available for God to every believer. This walk in the Spirit takes on a whole other dimension after one has the supernatural experience of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Jesus very specifically told the disciples to expect it and what would happen in them and through them as a result. We see this in Acts 1:8 and Acts 2:4. This baptism doesn’t make you perfect, or excellent instantly, you just have the power to become, the power to reflect Jesus (being a witness) wherever you are or wherever you go. All we need to do is willfully and intentionally yield to it.

Rom. 6:16   Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU MESS UP?

Everybody messes up, makes mistakes, does something he or she is not proud of. So what are we supposed to do about it?

Job 5:7   Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

My Jr. High School wood shop teacher frequently used the expression, “I may not be right but I am never been wrong.” Well that was one teacher who lied every time he said that. Everybody messes up, makes mistakes, does something he or she is not proud of.

Just think for  a minute, it won’t take you long to remember the last mistake you made, the last careless error, the last bone headed stupid thing that come out of your mouth. What is disturbing is that culturally, we have found ways of slighting the consequences of our mistakes. The expression, “OK, my bad” is good in that one takes the blame but most often that’s as far as it goes. Hopefully it was something easily fixed and the one who made the mistake took of it quickly, like fixing a typo or putting something back where it belongs. More often than not, however, people do all they can to PASS THE BUCK, to deny culpability. Pride makes sure to convince all that it was someone else’s fault.

 

Prov.16:18   Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. (NLT)

The laws of physics show us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Concerning the words and action of people, there are consequences for everything. Sometimes those consequences are good, sometimes not so good, sometimes pretty bad and sometimes horrible. It’s easy to MAN UP when the consequences are good, men crave that pat on the back. But so often I hear people trying to rationalize their fault when something doesn’t turn out right, when they made a mistake.

Human nature is all too predictable. The pattern of behavior thus far described started just after God put Adam and Eve in the beautiful, and easy to maintain, Garden of Eden. I have no doubt you have heard some great, and perhaps some not so great, sermons about what happened. When they messed up Adam tried to pass the buck to Eve who in turn tried to pass the buck to the serpent. The problem with this is that they were all guilty and the Lord let them all know it. Mankind, and all the rest of creation, is still dealing with the consequences of what those three did, and it is not very pretty. So much for a “no sweat” everything’s right there way of life.

So what should we do when we mess up? I am convinced that God laid out all the “how to’s” for how His creation is supposed to be. It is our responsibility to, by His grace and power, follow that plan. It will lead to life and great long term resolutions of the consequences of our words and actions. If you are just “looking out for number one” (yourself) your pride will rule and deal with it as mentioned before and Proverbs 16:8 makes clear the eventual consequences to good old number one. As hard as it may seem, we really need to:

1.   Man Up and confess your fault.

2.    Accept responsibility for the consequences

3.   Experience Godly sorrow for with it you receive the ability to do what the last sentence of this verse says,

2 Cor. 7:11   Just see what this godly sorrow produced in you! Such earnestness, such concern to clear yourselves, such indignation, such alarm,… such zeal, and   . You showed that you have done everything necessary to make things right.

4.   Seek God for the power to change, for the power to become what God created you to be.

2 Cor.5:17   Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.(KJV)

Mark 1:17   Then Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become...(NLT)

Phil.2:12   … work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Acts 1:8   But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses,

If you have tried to change , to consistently do what is right, to become more like Jesus, by using your own will power than I am certain you have experienced frustration, I sure have.

Mark 10:27…   Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”

I have a confession to make, I am tired of making the same mistakes over and over again. I am also tired of hearing people say, “OK, my bad” and then going on as if nothing happened and nothing needs to change going forward. It is time we learn to apprehend the grace of God and accept His power to change, His grace to do everything necessary to make things right. He will provide every dollar, every ounce of strength, every bit of intestinal fortitude we ever need to accomplish anything He leads us to do. 

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