So You Feel You've Failed

So you have a feeling of irretrievable spiritual loss.

This may comfort you in the Lord and show you that your end shall be better than your beginning:

1. First, the Lord showed me the Scripture where it records that when

the Temple was being rebuilt, the old men who remembered the former

Temple wept, because in their eyes the new Temple seemed like

nothing in comparison to the first House.

But the Lord encouraged them through the prophet, saying, "The glory of the latter house

shall be greater than the glory of the former".

The first Temple was destroyed because of Israel's failure and sin,

and the nation went into seventy years captivity. But when God

restored it, He promised the end result would be better than the

beginning!

When God restores an opportunity, it is always better, spiritually.

2. Second, I awoke one morning and the Lord showed me the Law in

the Bible where it states that the closest surviving relative of

any man who died without leaving children, was required to marry

his deceased brother's wife and raise up seed to his brother's

name, so that his inheritance in Israel was not discontinued.

I noticed the compassion of God here.

Under the Old Covenant, if a man died prematurely without having

children, we know he could have been under a curse (Deuteronomy

28). And we know a curse never comes without a cause (Proverbs

26:2). So we know that somewhere there could have been failure, or

maybe even sin - perhaps not his own, but indirectly atleast, it is possible that He was effected indirectly by sin, even if it was the sin of another person.

And yet even though there may have been failure, or sin, or a curse

as the cause of the man's predicament, yet God had compassion to

ensure the man's name and inheritance was still perpetuated in

Israel, by writing a procedure into Statute Law.

I wondered why the Lord was showing me all this that morning -

until I felt led to go to the Central Gold Coast Baptist Church at

Miami later that morning, and I found out why...

I arrived just in time to hear a sermon based on the Book of Ruth.

You remember the story: about Naomi who had left Israel (which was

under the judgment of famine) to live in a Gentile country, where

her husband and two married sons subsequently died without having

children of their own.

She returned to Israel bitter and broken, with nothing to show for

her life except Ruth her loyal daughter-in-law.

But the Lord did not leave off His kindness to Naomi nor to the

dead. He brought a son into Naomi's life through the marriage of

her daughter-in-law Ruth to Boaz, the dead man's relative who was

willing to act in accordance with the Law (the Law I'd read about

earlier that morning).

Ruth soon became pregnant, and everyone said, "A child has been

born to Naomi". Naomi took the child into her own bosom. Everyone

felt happy for her.

Naomi's fortunes were totally restored - and not only so, but the

son that was born to her became the grandfather of King David, the

ancestor of Christ.

Naomi is still talked about until this day wherever the Word of God

is read. (We probably wouldn't even know about Naomi today if her

life had never become bitter, and then restored in accordance with

this Statute in Law).

So, thanks to the kindness of God and His Word, Naomi's end was

better than her beginning!

And that's why the Lord showed me this Scripture - to show me that

it is in God's heart to cause our end to be better than our start.

Despite our mistake, He is kind to restore our place in Divine and

spiritual destiny and inheritance.

3. Thirdly, my brother in the Lord Jolon told me later that week that the Lord told him

to tell me that even though I may feel I've missed the opportunity

for God's "perfect will", that He is still able to provide His

perfect will up ahead in the future.

So that word from Jolon was a confirmation of everything else I'd

already heard from the Lord in my own spirit and through His

written Word earlier that week.

When I meditated on it, I realized that whenever God breaks

something and then restores it, the end-product is better than if

it had never ever been broken.

God's redemption of mankind places mankind in an even better

position than we were in before Adam sinned.

That's God's nature!

As Kenneth Copeland said, "Don't be concerned about the verse, 'All

have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.' That just means

you qualify for redemption!"

The more I thought about it, I also realized that as a believer in

Jesus, I am automatically in the chain of blessing that flows down

from Abraham to every generation.

Abraham was promised that his seed will inherit the earth, and that

he will have many spiritual sons. That seed was Christ. Through

Christ many sons are born into the Kingdom for all eternity.

But Abraham is depending on us, to see the promise made to him fulfilled in its fullness.

Every generation that teaches the next generation about Jesus

becomes a crucial player in that Blessing - because if one

generation fails to pass on the Gospel, the whole thing stops.

Therefore, we are a crucial link in the fulfilment of Abraham's

blessing. Unless we pass-on the Gospel, Abraham can't receive any

further inheritance in future generations.

But if we believe in Jesus and preach the Gospel, then we are

automatically a receiver and a channel of Abraham's blessing.

In one sense, we can claim that it be credited to our account, all the

fruit that gets produced in every future generation by the Gospel

(even if the world remains for hundreds more years) - because we in

this generation are the crucial link to the next generation and

every subsequent generation.

Therefore Abraham is depending on us!

By linking ourselves to Christ, we are automatically in the flow of

Abraham's Blessing, through future history and into eternity.

We also are made beneficiaries and partakers of the covenant called

"The Sure Mercies of David".

I have missed some opportunities in the past to bear spiritual

fruit - but God be thanked, He is able to restore the size of my

role in history by simply making me a link in the chain that will

someday result in a multitude of sons being born to Abraham through

Christ.

I don't know how, but He can do it.

Perhaps it can happen like the lady who said, "I only led one

person to the Lord my whole lifetime".

"What was his name?" someone asked.

"Billy Graham."

After all, our role won't be measured in eternity by the fruit we

saw during our own lifetime, but it will be measured by the

sum total of all the fruit that we were a link to.

In fact, more than that - it will be measured by our heart - whether our motive was love.

Like Naomi (who ended-up in the ancestry of Christ), God is able to

put us in a role where, in eternity, the fruit that gets credited

to our account will be more rich than anything we ever felt we lost.

It is God's compassion that will perform this (even when it was our

own mistake that brought the misfortune).

God's kindness and His covenant to an individual extends beyond the

individual's lifetime.

The measure of a man, and the measure of God's faithfulness to a

man, is counted by ongoing results in history, as well as in his

generation.

Someone once asked when a potter breaks a vessel and moulds it

again on the potter's wheel - is the end-product inferior to the

first? Never, because it is the same potter that made it.

The teaching of the Epistles is that our forefathers received the

promises, but they didn't receive their fulfilment. They saw them

afar off. Without us, they were not made perfect.

But Paul said "all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him

Amen, unto the glory of God by us".

By us!

All the promises of God (including all the promises made to Abraham

and to David) in Christ are "yes", and in Christ "Amen", resulting

in God's glory - by us - by John Edwards, by you, by all

believers - in Christ.

I told a Pastor once that we don't seek the fulfilment of the

Promises as if they are something "out there". Rather, we ARE the

fulfilment of the promises.

I told him, As believers we don't "do" to "get" - rather we "have"

because we "are".

God can bring about your opportunities again, even if it has to come in a different

way, a different time, through different people, different

circumstances, with a different outward appearance.

With God, the end result will be just as good and even better.

I noticed once that all the Promises on which the Gospel is based

(all the promises prophesied in the Old Testament), are promises

that were made to Israel not when they were first starting out and

were doing well - but when they had stuffed up and were actually

about to go into captivity.

(The Gospel promises were prophesied

not during Israel's glory days under Moses, Joshua, David or Solomon -

but they were spoken when God was about to let them be taken

captive for a season by Babylon!)

We sometimes mistakenly think that God's promises apply to us only

if we can manage to never stuff up - when in fact His promises (His

promise in the Gospel) already presupposed that we have stuffed up

before they were even given!

In other words, our mistakes are not a barrier in the way to our

destiny: they were already factored-in to the equation when the

promises were first given to us.

That's the Gospel.

Hallelujah!