LEARNING DAILY

 

Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

 

I found some interesting statistics when reading a devotional written by Tony Dungy. Let me give some to you to read. “Michael Jordan has said, ‘I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.’ Babe Ruth struck out almost twice the number of times he hit a home run, yet is still considered one of the greats. Abraham Lincoln lost almost every political race he entered, until he was finally elected president of the United States.” And one more example. “Thomas Edison went through thousands of experiments before inventing the light bulb. You’d think that Edison must have felt like quitting, giving up on the idea altogether.”

 

There is no doubt many examples of the failures individuals have experienced. The fact is, we all fail. We all stumble and fall when attempting do what we are trying to achieve. What do we do when this happens? What do we advise others when they fail and fall? Perhaps we tell them of the individuals who failed so often and, yet, are consider to be so successful in their field. There are many ways to respond according to Dungy; he writes the only proper response is to get up, get over it and try again. That’s great advice for all of us as we go through life.

 

Paul writes in the book of Romans that “everyone of us fall short of the glory of God”. Even after we get on the narrow way to eternal life in God’s kingdom, we still fall, still fail.  Paul wrote in Romans 7 the dilemma he faced when he was unable to live the life God wanted him to live  because he only did the things God did not want him to do. I do not know what Paul was referring to, but I know how I fail all the time. As Christians, perhaps we try to clean the sin out of our lives by our own power. I think it was Charles Swindoll who wrote the harder we try to remove sin from ourselves, the more we are drawn to it. You and I are responsible for doing our very best to stay on the narrow way. I know that success in doing so comes only by the help of the Holy Spirit who makes it known to us when we are too close to the edge of the narrow way.

It is our obedience to the Holy spirit’s leading that keeps us on the narrow way.

 

When we fail, we get back up by admitting we sinned. God already knows, he has seen and/or heard. He does forgive when we acknowledge what we have done. Jesus died for every sin we have committed, and will commit. This is not a license to do whatever we want because we can fall back on His forgiveness. When we acknowledge our sin, the grace of God covers us. This is an expression of His love; it is cannot be earned by us – it is His gift to us because of our faith in Jesus Christ. It is also unlimited and overrules whatever a person has done. That is a wonderful gift that should cause us to be very careful to walk in faith and obedience at all times. Be encouraged, learn from your mistakes. Dungy writes, “If you fall into a mud puddle, there isn’t much you can do to make matters worse – unless you stay there.” Think about that!