Overcoming Failure, Part I

Even the great men of the Bible were really not that great.  I have sinned against God and I certainly understand the temptations.  We want things to be better.  We don't want conflict.  We want to escape.  This life is tough, not doubt.  It drives us, seduces us, and confuses us.  And we sin.  We fail.  We fall short.  But what excuse did Adam have?  He was the first man.  He did not come to be through the womb of a woman.  He came to be from the very hands of God.  He lived in paradise.  He took care of a garden that needed no watering and had no weeds.  He walked with God.  And when it seemed like he had everything, God created woman.  He had it made.  Like I said, I understand sinning in the face of temptations, pressures, and trials of this life.  But how could Adam fall.  His life was perfect and still, he failed.

Afterward, he ran and hid.  He created space between he and God.  This is a reaction that many of us are familiar with.  Failure is hard to deal with and our shame makes us want to run away and hide, especially from God.  But if we are ever to overcome our failures, we first must see failure as God sees it.  God was not surprised by Adam's actions in the Garden of Eden.  Scripture says that all of our days are written down before any of them come to be.  And God did not destroy Adam, kill Adam, or even leave Adam.  Sure, there were consequences.  He had to leave the Garden, but when we keep reading, God never left Adam.  God sees failure much different than we do.

When a person fails, especially a Christian, the world condemns them as hypocrites.  The problem with overcoming failure is that too many Christians have adopted the world's view of failure. Consequently, even when a Christian brother or sister, God-forbid, a preacher fails, the church joins right in with the condemnation.  And if we are not careful, we will start condemning ourselves just as they condemn us.  But the Scripture is clear that condemnation is not from God.  Romans 8 says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  None.  Zip.  Nada.  Consequences, yes.  Condemnation, no.

Let's go a little deeper into how God sees our failures.  When Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, God did tell him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  And then Adam was tempted.  Temptation comes before sin.  The Scripture says that Christ was tempted in every way, but never sinned so we know that temptation is not sin.  But had Adam been completely Holy, he never would have even been tempted.  Jesus took on the form of a man in every way therefore He was tempted.  But God, the Father, who is completely Holy is not tempted by anything.  He is completely pure and simply can not entertain sin even for a moment.  So we know that Adam was not created perfectly holy.  He was created with the ability to choose right and wrong and had the capacity to be tempted.  So God was not surprised, nor overwhelmed when Adam fell into sin because He, as the Creator, knew that Adam had been created imperfect and susceptible to sin.

God made us with the potential to sin because He wanted us to be able to choose Him, to choose to love Him.  He could not give us the choice to love Him without the choice to not love Him.  So our spiritual DNA is not pure.  And because it is not pure, we are easily seduced into sin.  So Adam and Eve ate the fruit.  God removed them from the Garden as a consequence, but never stopped loving them.  If you keep reading the story of Adam and Eve, you see that God never left them, but continued to bless them even through hardship.

For those who have put their faith in Christ Jesus as their Lord and Savior, God will spend all of your lifetime helping you overcome your potential to sin by the power of the Holy Spirit.  He will give you consequences to keep you from sinning.  And He will love you thoroughly even when you sin.  The combination of the consequences and unconditional love draw us to Him.  It does not drive us from Him.  "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."