Successes and Failures

Two weeks ago I had a realization. In my car on the way home from the office I was turning over some events that had transpired. On one hand, we are getting a lot accomplished in the life of Round Lake Christian Church and this feels good. It feels like God is at work, we are moving in His Spirit, and our eyes are focusing on the light of Christ. However, I found that in some areas, my wife was unhappy. I might not be accused of being negligent, but I certainly could be doing better. On one hand we are succeeding at RLCC but on the other hand it feels as if many times these successes come at the expense of my family.

That same week a member of our church body went to be with Jesus. She was 89 and had loved Jesus very much. I was able to spend time with the family and prepare for the memorial service. It was a great opportunity for ministry. However, I neglected to inform a family in our church who was having a baby shower on the same day at the same time at the church building. It was shaping up to be quite an odd experience, what with a baby shower and memorial service on the same day. Again, success with the memorial service, failure with the baby shower.

So on the way home I'm thinking and this realization comes to me. "Every success in life requires a failure in some other area. And every failure in life means there is success in another area." It was both a sobering and uplifting realization. I am not perfect. I live and die by the grace of God. Even when I have blinders on and think that all is well, I am still a sinful human being. The war for my heart is not over, I need to continue to endure to the end. No matter how much success I may perceive at home, in the church, in my personal sanctification, in my devotional life, I need to realize that by nature I have still failed somewhere.

But the flipside is true as well. No matter how big my failures of sin and ignorance, there is always success in it. The success is that Jesus takes those things and produces perseverance, which produces character, which produces hope (check out Romans 5). Thanks be to God for failures because they give me a chance to recognize that I still need Jesus. He is my success, my hope, my great joy. I can say, like Paul, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7:24-25)

Remember today that every success is a failure in some area of your life and that every failure is equally a success in another area. Trust God in that. Live in that. Grow from it.

Leadership Lessons from Charles Swindoll

Some really good insights from the latest email newsletter of PreachingNow. Just something for all of God's servants to consider:

SWINDOLL'S LEADERSHIP LESSONS

Chuck Swindoll was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at last week's Catalyst '09 Conference. During his presentation, he described "10 Things I Have Learned During Nearly 50 Years in Leadership." Here's the list:

1) It's lonely to lead. Leadership involves tough decisions. The tougher the decision, the lonelier it is.

2) It's dangerous to succeed. I'm most concerned for those who aren't even 30 and are very gifted and successful. Sometimes God uses someone right out of youth, but usually He uses leaders who have been crushed.

3) It's hardest at home. No one ever told me this in seminary.

4) It's essential to be real. If there's one realm where phoniness is common, it's among leaders. Stay real.

5) It's painful to obey. The Lord will direct you to do some things that won't be your choice. Invariably you will give up what you want to do for the cross.

6) Brokenness and failure are necessary.

7) Attitude is more important than actions. Your family may not have told you: Some of you are hard to be around. A bad attitude overshadows good actions.

8) Integrity eclipses image. Today we highlight image, but it's what you're doing behind the scenes.

9) God's way is better than my way.

10) Christ-likeness begins and ends with humility.

Blessed Are The Merciful

Am I merciful? Am I forgiving? These are extremely important questions. In fact, how we answer these questions has huge implications for the state of our souls. Listen to some words from the book of Matthew.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy." (5:7)

"For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions." (6:14-15)

"It is not the healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (9:12-13)

"And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart." (18:34-35)

Why is it that we can not receive mercy unless we have first been merciful? So that we don't misunderstand the text and think that God's forgiveness of us is based on our forgiving others, let's restate the point. Only those who know how much they have been forgiven are able to forgive others. And if this is true, then the inverse must be as well, which is, if we do not know how to forgive others, then we have not known forgiveness.

What a scary thing to consider. Are you able to forgive and let go of a grudge? Are you able to love the unloveable? Consider God's mercy in Jesus Christ. How rich, full, wide, and deep that mercy and forgiveness is. That while you were still yet a sinner Christ died for you. Not based on how good you are or what you have accomplished. Rather because of your lust, your lying, your hatefulness, your pride, your vanity, your dirty little secret, Jesus died for you. And yet we as "Christians" can be so merciless, so unforgiving. We get upset about another church's style. We get upset because we were slighted by a friend. We get upset because someone didn't like our ideas. We upset because that person caused us personal emotional injury.

What did you expect? They are forgiven, just like you. And if they are forgiven, it means they have sinned. And if they have sinned, until they become fully mature in Christ, they will continue to battle sin. But on the other hand, they are forgiven, just like you. And if you are forgiven, then you should in turn find it quite easy to forgive an equally sinful, equally forgiven brother or sister. I am praying that I can learn what real mercy is all about. That I could know the forgiveness that God offers so that I may extend that same forgiveness to all those who I come into contact with.

I'm going to be on TV

I don't normally write blogs about what's going on in my life, but this is an interesting thing that has recently happened to me. We have someone in our church who works at TBN, (yes you read that right), and has asked Chuck (our youth minister) and myself if we'd be willing to be interviewed. We both said yes. But what I am finding difficult is what I want to talk about.

This blog is based on the fact that I have the message of God burning within and I can't hold it or I will explode. These interviews that we are to do will be on the one "non-religious" programming that the FCC (not florida christian college) requires TBN to carry. Therefore, we are not allowed to talk at length about Jesus, the church, or things of a spiritual nature. My topic is to discuss family. So my concern is, how do I talk about family without talking about Jesus?

This is not an easy thing for me. I believe that Jesus is at the core of the family unit. I believe that without a proper understanding of God and His plan of creation and redemption, then we can not properly understand the dynamics of a family. I guess I did not realize how difficult the task would be when I agreed.

What I plan on doing is focusing my efforts on the externals of a family, how sin has caused the break down of the family (won't use the word sin of course) and what a proper family would look like. Please pray for Chuck and myself as we try to figure out how to be true to God in this task.