I no longer believe that God is solely concerned about our success in trials as I once believed, though success and failure certainly can be used as indicators of where we are in our growth, progress, and maturity. In school I was always so afraid of failing the test. I learned the information for one purpose alone – to pass the test. It did not matter whether I actually agreed with the information or believed it. I simply studied to get pass marks. When I passed a test, I reveled in that mark. I was so proud of what I’d accomplished. But, when I failed, I beat myself up emotionally. This is how we are…results-oriented and results-driven. Passing the test meant I was a success. Failing the test meant I was a failure. The whole of society measures the worth of a person based on what they have accomplished. We are defined primarily by what we do and how we do, rather than who we are.
Stepping into the Kingdom of God, we bring all our results-driven paradigms with us…things the Lord takes many pains and much delight in crucifying. In His family, we learn His ways, not to pass a test, but to become more like Him. The tests indeed come, but the pass or fail is not an indication of our worth or value before Him. It simply indicates whether our natures are operating in a way of being that is either consistant or contrary to His way of being. Tests are designed to expose who we are in our nature. This does not mean that we should be afraid of the tests that come. In fact, we should welcome them, because they bring the dross to the surface. When unrighteousness is exposed within us through the fire of adversity, we have the opportunity to allow the Father to remove it, resulting in a heart that is more like HIS heart.
In this renewal process, we can be absolutely confident that He is FOR us. He is a Father that loves us more than we could EVER fathom and is fully committed to working with us, helping us to understand why His way is the good way, why doing things our own way in our own strength will never bring us any peace, and how to let His Holy Spirit bring our natures into agreement with His nature more fully. This really is the process of sanctification. The designs have already been completed from before the foundations of the world. He had already seen us completed in Him before we were made, so He relates to us, not in our current condition, but according to the plans that He lovingly made for us.
For too long we've had this idea that God is put off by our failures. But, for the heart that is continually trying and reaching out for Him, wanting to do things His way, He says, "Beloved, all your failures have already been accounted for and atoned for on the Cross. I don't hold your sins against you. Instead, I will use your failures to help you understand My goodness and grace toward you more fully. Just keep trying. Keep reaching. Keep getting up and pressing forward. Take hold of my mercies and believe that I am doing for you what you cannot do for yourself. I am transforming you." Without experiencing failure like the prodigal son, we would never fully realize the goodness and the kindness of our Father, who runs to meet us in our returning…and notice here that He always has a plan for our returning...and our complete restoration. No matter how far we think we have strayed from His love, we can’t get away. He will remind us time and again of His kindness and the unbelievable benefits that we have in returning to Him and remaining with Him.
When the prodigal finally came to his senses and returned, the father did not wait for the son to approach him and to get on his knees and beg for mercy. NO! The father saw him at a distance and RAN to him, fell on his neck and kissed him. The prodigal declared his guilt to his father, and rather than the father disparaging the son over the wickedness of his actions and condemning him for wastefully spending his entire inheritance, the father ordered the servants to bring robe, ring, and sandals and to kill the fatted calf because they were going to celebrate the son’s homecoming.
Initially, the son did not come home because he was sorry for what he had done. He simply missed the father’s provision. He missed his father’s goodness. The father didn’t hold that against him. He was just so glad to have his son home again. Sometimes, we come to the Lord with wrong motives, but He doesn’t condemn us for that. He knows that without Him we can’t live, so He pours upon us grace upon grace, even accepting us when our motives are far from right. He fully restores us by clothing us in His robe of righteousness, placing the ring of His favor upon us, and shodding our feet with the ministry of reconciliation.
The heart and intention of our Father in heaven is to produce voluntary lovers who are faithful to Him to the end. How could this be accomplished if every mistake we ever made was met with a disapproving look and a harsh rebuke rather than an invitation to come closer and let Him love us more. It is inevitably His love for us that will win our devotion. It is in gazing upon perfect love and experiencing it firsthand that will cast out all our fear.
This is why God so intentionally included all the failures of His servants in the Scriptures. If His servants had responded with perfect obedience or God only recorded their successes, we would have no grid for how God treated human weakness and utter failure. We would be completely terrified of approaching Him for fear of His judgment, and unable to see Him as the Father that joyfully takes weak, frail human beings and through the power of His grace transforms them into men and women of renown. What a wise and good Father we have who unashamedly broadcast the poor choices, personality flaws, physical defects, and character weaknesses of those He chose in His own story in order to magnify His own loving kindness, compassion, tender mercies...and the transforming power of His grace.
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