If You Blow It
You said something you wish you could unsay, but you can’t. You got into a sinful habit and did things you can’t undo. You made a mess because you didn’t use wisdom in handling a situation. You hurt someone and lost a valued relationship with careless words or actions. You suddenly realize that something you’ve been preaching or singing about is actually unsupportable with Scripture and it’s too late to take back your published works. You let your flesh get the best of you and you lost your position because of it. NOW WHAT?
If You Mess Up, Fess Up
First, don’t try to defend something that wasn’t right. It will only communicate to your hearers that you aren’t really sorry for what you did. For example, “Well, yeah, I got into porn, but you know, my wife wasn’t being very attentive to my needs.” You’d be better off saying nothing than blame-shifting like that. Adam and Eve both tried the blame-shifting game when they were confronted and it didn’t work. It won’t work for you, either. If you’re sorry about what you did, say so, and don’t drag anyone else into it. No one else can ever MAKE you sin. On the other hand, the whole world doesn’t need to know what you did, and you can just make things worse by talking about your failure around people who weren’t the offended parties.
Don’t take the modern approach and excuse your sin as a disease. For example, “The disease of alcoholism took root in me.” I don’t care who comes out and says that your SIN is a DISEASE – if the Bible says it’s a sin (for example, drunkenness), then it’s a sin, not a disease. Be accountable for your own bad decisions.
If You Blow It, Join the Club
The Bible is full of people who really, really blew it – and God kept using them anyway! If you blow it, God can still use you, too! If God could only use perfect people, He would never use anyone! The devil will try to tell you that your life and/or ministry is basically over, but he never was one to promote grace. He is the ultimate legalist and lying is his trademark.
It’s hard to imagine a higher-profile scandal than what happened between King David and Bathsheba. Yet God continued to use David after that. David really blew it, but he really repented, too.
In one well-known high-profile incident, two signs-and-wonders preachers who planted multiple churches together got so mad at each other over the handling of a certain associate that they parted company and never worked together again. This isn’t a recent story; their names were Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:36-39). We don’t know much about what Barnabas did after that, but God certainly did not stop using Paul. Listen, the only people God has available for His kingdom work are imperfect REAL PEOPLE who have REAL SHORTCOMINGS and sometimes make REAL MESSES!
Moses messed up when he killed an Egyptian to try to prove that he was the man who was to deliver Israel. God still used him. Moses messed up again when he struck a rock that he was supposed to speak to. That was a very serious matter to God. But God kept using Moses after that anyway!
Judah got involved with a prostitute. In unbelief, Abraham got involved with Hagar to try to make God’s promise come to pass when the promise was for supposed to be for him and his wife. Abraham lied twice about being married to his wife (Genesis 12:12-13, Genesis 20:2); his son Isaac learned from his father’s bad example and did the same thing (Genesis 26:7)! Paul insulted the high priest at Jerusalem and apologized (Acts 23:2-5); God kept using him. Samson had various shortcomings. Peter denied Jesus three times, and I don’t know how you could do something much worse than that! But God wasn’t done with Peter, who went on to see thousands saved when he preached within a week after he was baptized with the Holy Spirit! He did miracles. But later Peter got caught up with the Judaizers. Even Barnabas got caught up in their hypocrisy and Paul rebuked Peter publicly for it (Galatians 2:11-14). These were the “famous-name preachers” of their day! God still used them both; Peter went on to write two books of the Bible and Paul wrote even more! John Mark deserted Paul and Barnabas on a mission trip, but God wasn’t done with him and he was later a blessing to Paul. I’m glad that the Bible is honest about the failings of the people whom God used. It reassures us that you don’t have to be some kind of Christian superhero for God to use you.
Perhaps even more shockingly, Judas was a thief and God kept using him in signs and wonders! The Bible nowhere says that “the apostles – except for Judas – did thus-and-such.” You can be sure that God didn’t use Judas because of his upright behavior! If God could use JUDAS even after some of the things he kept doing, surely He could continue to use YOU!
I’ve been around long enough to have seen serious pubic rifts between household-name preachers in our day. I was shocked to hear one of them disparaging the other in a service I attended in person. While the preacher did not mention the other preacher’s name, he described him in a way so that I doubt that anyone in the room wondered whom he was talking about. Yet God continued to use both the man who was criticized as well as the man doing the criticizing mightily, regardless of what happened to the relationship between them! Sadly, the whole mess was over some rather nonessential side issues. On another occasion, household-name preachers broke ties with each other over a rather careless and unnecessarily offensive remark that one of them made. Yet God continued to use the preachers on either side of the rift even though they weren’t on good terms with each other for quite a while. On yet another occasion, preachers who worked together in the same mighty outpouring parted company over an administrative matter that had nothing to do with doctrine. But God kept using both of them, too, albeit separately.
You wouldn’t be the first person to offend people unnecessarily. On a certain regrettable occasion, I did it myself and it ruined what until that point was a really good meeting. You learn from your mistakes, keep going, and let God continue to use you. In another instance, I was leading worship in another country in front of a lot of people and I gave the team what I thought was a signal to do the verse. It turned out that in that country, my signal was an obscene gesture which in the United States would have been the equivalent of giving the worship team the finger! But my ministry went on.
Don’t believe the devil when he says that now you’re unusable now. The WORD tells us that God’s gifts and callings are irrevocable (Romans 11:29). They’re still irrevocable even if you blow it – because of GRACE!
If You Blow It, Remember the Cross
The devil wants you to think, “God may have technically forgiven you, but He’s still upset with you for doing what you did and making such a mess of things! He can never use you after this; He’ll just have to get someone else. You’ll never have a worthwhile life now because of what you did. In fact, you can expect something really terrible to happen to you or your family in the next week and it will be God’s way of demonstrating His displeasure.” Then he wants you to beat yourself up with statements like these: “I’m so STUPID! How could I have done that? What’s wrong with me? Anyone with half a lick of sense would have known better. Now I guess I have to take what’s coming to me. Whatever bad thing happens now, I deserve it.”
David fell into this kind of self-recrimination. When Shimei cursed him, David refused to do anything about it because he thought that GOD had said, “Curse David” (2 Samuel 16:10). He figured he had it coming, and he was right, but God is not interested in dishing out what you have coming. If He were, He would not have sent Jesus to suffer what you had coming for your sins!
Hear this: If God’s ability to use you depends on your ability to stay out of trouble, Jesus went to the cross for nothing! If we should all get what we deserve when we sin, Jesus’ bloodshed was a waste of time! Why do you think He was tortured? He KNEW you were going to blow it in a number of ways, and He took what you deserve in your place. If He took it, why should you take it? The whole point of mercy is that you don’t get the bad things you deserve, and the whole point of grace is that you do get the good things you don’t deserve! If you blow it, you are still a child of God and every spiritual blessing still belongs to you (Ephesians 1:3). You don’t forfeit the blessing of Abraham (Galatians 3:14) just because you blow it!
My experience is that MOST church people still operate under an Old Covenant legalism that keeps them from walking in victory. You don’t reign in life because your track record is spotless; you reign in life because you have received the GIFT of righteousness (Romans 5:17), which has NOTHING to do with how much you have sinned or not sinned.
If You Blow It, Forgive Yourself
Jesus said that when you stand praying to believe that you receive, forgive if you have anything against anyone (Mark 11:25). THAT INCLUDES YOURSELF! YOU are probably the hardest person on earth to forgive! Jesus forgave you, so who are you to refuse to forgive anyone – including yourself – when Jesus says you’re forgiven? Don’t sit around heaping condemnation on yourself, which is SO easy to do! If it’s not easy enough for you to do, the devil would like to provide assistance doing it. You need to be able to point at yourself in the mirror and say, “I FORGIVE YOU!” It may even help to do that literally. It’s helped me!
If You Blow It, Don’t Punish Yourself
You have NO RIGHT to punish yourself for doing something wrong. God alone has the right to punish you (unless you’ve done something that the civil authorities have to punish). He says that vengeance is His (Romans 12:19). He chose to take out His vengeance for your sins upon Jesus. You have no business taking out vengeance on yourself – you’re stealing from God, who is the only one to whom vengeance rightfully belongs! If you’ve been punishing yourself, repent for stealing from God. (Don’t punish yourself for stealing God’s exclusive right to punish sin!)
If Someone Else Blows It, Be Like God and Extend Grace
A famous preacher was caught sinning, and some other preachers tried to lift themselves up by putting this man down. All that did was tell the world that Christians don’t love each other, but rather turn on each other and distance themselves from each other when one of them sins. Far worse, it shows that they don’t forgive. How can you preach a Jesus who forgives sinners, no matter how horrible their sins, and then turn around and stab a fallen brother in the back when he sins? Sending the message that Christians do this could actually have turned far more people away from church than the original issue did. Ask yourself, “If I blew it, how would I want the Body of Christ to relate to me?” (Matthew 7:12) and do the same for the one who stumbled. If you just say, “I would never do anything like that idiot did,” you’ve turned yourself into a modern-day Pharisee like the man in Luke 18:10-14.
“Yes,” you may think, “but doesn’t 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 tell us to drive sexually immoral people who claim to be brothers out of the church?” Well, that passage tells you what to do with unrepentant immoral people, but you can’t apply it to a repentant person who fell, in which case Galatians 6:1 applies instead. Remember, even in the case of the man at Corinth, he repented and was restored to fellowship, not blacklisted for life. Now Galatians tells those “who are spiritual among you” to restore people, but in some places, there aren’t any people spiritual enough to want to restore a fallen brother. Rather than saying, “We forgive you,” they may be more prone to saying, “Off with your head!” This is a trait that needs to change. I know at least one account of a repentant fallen preacher who went on to do greater things than he had ever done before he fell. In his case, the sad part is that the “sin” he was initially hung out to dry for was extremely minor if it was even a sin at all, but his legalist brothers heaped condemnation on him to the point that for a season he was convinced that he was lost and headed for hell, and this thought drove him into far more serious sin! Imagine the reward in heaven for whoever was spiritual enough to restore him so that he could get back to building the kingdom (James 5:19-20)!
If You Blow It, Remember That God Sprinkles You from an Evil Conscience
Having a conscience is not evil – God gave it to you to keep you out of trouble. However, Hebrews talks about being sprinkled from an evil conscience:
Hebrews 10:22:
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
What does that mean? It means that the blood of Jesus has washed your sins away, so you need not even think about those sins anymore. If God has promised to “remember your sins no more,” you ought to have the same attitudes toward past sins. Forget about them! Being constantly nagged by something stupid you did in the past is having an evil conscience, and God doesn’t want you to be tormented that way. Even if you retain knowledge of what you did in your memory (you’re not a computer database where you can just delete a record), the guilt associated with the event should be gone. It doesn’t mean that you’re defending what you did, but it means that you agree with God that you are eternally forgiven for what you did.
This purging wasn’t available under the Old Covenant:
Hebrews 10:1-4:
For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.
But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.
For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.
People’s sins were only COVERED, never TAKEN AWAY, under the Law of Moses. The sins were still “there” – they were just covered. You could still have tormenting recollections of your sins because they were never “gone.” But under the New Covenant, your sins are WASHED AWAY, so there is nothing to cover up anymore!
If You Blow It, Grace Is Still Grace
Now I’ll get to the main reason why I included this discussion in a book about healing. It is really easy to have a “sick in the pit of your stomach” feeling when you realize that you’ve blown it. I’ve felt that more than once, and you probably have as well! If you’re not careful, you can let down your guard, get David’s self-condemning attitude as described above, and allow Satan to harm you with sicknesses because you figure that that you have them coming. It’s easy to get so depressed about a mistake you made that you stop obeying God’s mandates to RESIST the devil (1 Peter 5:8-10). If you just let him run roughshod over you, you’ll make a bad situation worse.
Suppose a man has been looking for work for months but he can’t find anything. Finally, there is no food for his family. In desperation, he agrees to be a “custom courier” for packages that he knows full well contain illegal drugs. He gets the packages to someone else, gets paid and his family eats. Now the recipient goes out and sells the contents of his packages near the local high school to the students. Within a week, one is dead from an overdose and a second drives while high and plows into a family’s van, killing two family members and permanently disfiguring a third one. The man realizes that the drugs he carried were likely the ones responsible. The next time he drives somewhere with his family, he deliberately steers the car into a large tree to try to end his heartache. His wife and daughter die, but he somehow lives with only scratches and bruises. He realizes that he may be in prison for murder for a long time once the police show up and see what he did. He is able to run down the road, and he ducks into a church building where a service happens to be going on. He hears about the blood that Jesus shed for him, believes the good news and gets saved on the spot.
Did this man receive forgiveness for everything he did? YES! We seem to have no problem believing (correctly) that the worst sinner in town could get saved and be instantly forgiven for everything. But now, if a BROTHER IN CHRIST commits sins that are far less harmful to society at large, does that same blood provide forgiveness for what HE did? We know that a horrible sinner could be saved and then welcomed to church as part of God’s family. But too often, when someone is ALREADY SAVED, we act as if his sin is unpardonable and we shun the person, lest anyone think that we are a friend to someone who was caught in sin and we might be seen as guilty by association. (That never stopped Jesus from being a friend to sinners.) That double standard needs to stop, especially in YOUR mind. If Christ’s forgiveness applies to ALL of a SINNER’S failures, how much more does it apply to all of YOURS, too, now that you’re saved! (If you don’t believe that you have God’s total forgiveness yet, please read Forgiven People Can Be Healed.)
If You Blow It, Don’t Try to Plead Your Case with God
Don’t try to sweet-talk God by saying you’ll make it up to Him. You CAN’T. Doing penance is an ungodly Roman Catholic deception. Good works can never make up for even a single sin. Only the shedding of blood produces forgiveness (Hebrews 9:22). Jesus already shed the blood needed to clear your name in heaven. Don’t go against the Word by trying to plead your case with God. That is above your pay grade. You already have an Advocate with the Father – Jesus (1 John 2:1) – so you don’t have to try to be your own Advocate. You’d never do it as well as He can!
If You Blow It, Still Believe the Word About Your Healing
Thank God that His grace is bigger than any of your failures! If Satan tells you that you “have that disease coming” because you deserve it, you can AGREE with him that you DO deserve it and then tell him that IT IS WRITTEN that Jesus took what you “had coming” in your place when He was wounded for your transgressions and bruised for your iniquities! IT IS WRITTEN that because of the damage inflicted to HIS body for YOUR sins, YOUR body has the right to be whole – all the time. Even when you blow it!
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