Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Succeeding At Failure
Cereulean Sanctum looks at failure:
Do we need reassurance in economic tough times? Yes we do! How do we achieve that reassurance? Well, as I understand the gospel, we achieve it by grasping our failure and laying it at God's feet - not with the expectation that He will change the circumstance, but with the faith that He will provide, regardless. Put another way, our ONLY failure is to rely on ourselves and not on Jesus Christ.
Failure hurts, it is scary and terrifying and shameful, but in it, AND ONLY IN IT - lies victory. The road to salvation starts at confession. Without failure, confession is void and pointless. The comfort of the gospel in the midst of failure is not in the "there, there...," it's in the "hurts like hell, don't it? - NOW lay it at Christ's feet, feel the pain and let that pain turn to to the only relief."
"For I have been crucified with Christ...," Getting crucified sounds like failure to me. Gotta be done before we can be resurrected.
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This is not to say that God can’t do miracles. But the simple fact is that you don’t go to bed a video store clerk and wake up the next day as the lead on the Large Hadron Collider. And the even simpler fact is sometimes all the hard work in the world will not get you there, either.Gosh, the gospel is all about failure. Because, we are all failures on the things that truly matter and we can all succeed only through grace. Dan's right, the church is missing the boat here, but it does not need a "Gospel that speaks to failure," it needs simply - THE GOSPEL. Which infers that the church needs a heavy, strong dose of humility as well.
And that’s why, especially at this time, we need a Gospel that speaks to failure.
[...]
Worse, where are the former homeowners? Are they in our pews or not? My guess is on the “not” side. I’m thinking that nothing hurts worse than to go down in flames in your church while everyone around looks the other way or quotes you Romans 8:28 off the motivational plaque they bought from the local Christian bookstore. Why stick around listening to sermons on Christian leadership when you were desperate for a servant in your time of need and one never showed up.
It really galled me that one of the largest sources of the pile-on afflicting those first homeowners who lost their homes at the beginning of all this was Christians. In our self-righteous ire, we blamed people for being stupid. And perhaps they were. But when is grace only for the smart people of the world?
[...]
God, we need a Gospel that speaks to failure preached in our churches more than ever. Please, someone, anyone, preach it!
Do we need reassurance in economic tough times? Yes we do! How do we achieve that reassurance? Well, as I understand the gospel, we achieve it by grasping our failure and laying it at God's feet - not with the expectation that He will change the circumstance, but with the faith that He will provide, regardless. Put another way, our ONLY failure is to rely on ourselves and not on Jesus Christ.
Failure hurts, it is scary and terrifying and shameful, but in it, AND ONLY IN IT - lies victory. The road to salvation starts at confession. Without failure, confession is void and pointless. The comfort of the gospel in the midst of failure is not in the "there, there...," it's in the "hurts like hell, don't it? - NOW lay it at Christ's feet, feel the pain and let that pain turn to to the only relief."
"For I have been crucified with Christ...," Getting crucified sounds like failure to me. Gotta be done before we can be resurrected.
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