Sometimes...

Sometimes do you feel like a failure or worthless in your relationship with Christ or just life in general?  Joey was one of them.  His life was that of disheartening feelings of worthlessness and failures. Regardless of what happened, things never worked to his advantage. He was always left behind on the things of life that mattered most. He barely made it through high school. He dropped out of college after the first term. His life was full of failures because each time he tried something, it never worked out for him.

Joey couldn’t find a good paying job and either got fired for some frivolous thing or quit when things were starting to go well because of fear of getting his hopes up for something he knew would fail anyway in due time. So he floated along through life.

Still living with his parents because he couldn’t afford to live on his, he saw no future for himself, just another lump on the log of life waiting to decay into dirt.  Joey had no girlfriend, never did, and had only a handful of friends.  He never did drugs, but he did drink to help him escape the day he had and to numb his mind for the next day he would just get through again.

Joey was raised in a Christian home but never connected with God and never got saved. He still went to church with his parents, one of the conditions of living with them, but he never looked forward to it.  He felt so little and unrecognized in church.  He felt that what kind of God would make him feel as he did: worthless and a failure in life? Why did nothing ever go his way? Why did he just exist with no hopes of a pleasant future? Why, he asked, did God make his life so miserable?  Anyway, long story short, he felt like a failure to his parents, himself and God. ‘Worthless Joey’ is what he felt of himself and saw himself as.

Are you this guy on some level or at this time in your life? Maybe things aren’t going your way. Maybe you feel disconnected to Christ and His love.  Do you feel worthlessness or a failure to God? In your mind you may be think “ya, I am,” but I’m here to tell you that you are not worthless and are not a failure. 

You may have failed at things in life, such as college, a good job, finances, your family, etc., but that does not translate into a failure unto Christ.  The world will try to keep you down by showing you and leading you to failure, but Christ doesn’t think you are a failure.  You are the clay He is still forming in His hands to make you the man or women he wants you to be.  Don’t get into the mind set of being a failure or worthless to Christ.

The world is pretty darn good at making us feel worthless or failures. Satan does this because he knows if he can get you down in the things of the world, he can crack your armor and make you feel worthless and a failure to God as well.  I admit that this is still a struggle for me at times.  I totally feel like a loser sometimes and feel that I have failed Christ in some way in my life.

The reason this crack in my armor happens sometimes is because I let the issue get to me and I’m sure some of you feel the same.  I let Satan’s world get me down, and it is hard to get back up at times.  When I fail, for me, it makes me feel worthless.  When I feel worthless, I don’t feel deserving of Christ’s love for me. When I don’t feel deserving of Christ’s love, it begins to create a slippery slope of not feeling connected with Him anymore. 

When I feel this way, rationally, I know it isn’t true, but emotionally, I do feel like it is.  Am I a weak Christian? I’ve asked myself this many a time.  I’m not though- Christ is my center and my rock, but the world has on occasion gotten me to think otherwise. 

You know what I do when my rational mind kicks in and over powers the irrational thoughts of worthlessness to Christ? I get my good ole Bible out and I read 1 John. For me, the Gospel of 1 John calms me down and brings me back to Christ.  May be different for you, but it works for me.

When the world gets you down, it is easy to let it spread into your spiritual life. Yet we must do our best to remember that we are not failures or worthless to God. We may sometimes feel like we are but we are not.  Sometimes things in this world don’t go the way we want them to and so we sometimes let that slip into our relationship with Christ.  We just have to do our best to remember the promises and love that Christ has for us.

1 John 3:1 says: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.”

Worthless? A failure? I think not.  If you are a lover of Christ, a Christian, then we are called the sons of God.  We are His children and what father would do harm to His children? None of the Christian parents I know of. So if we love our children, just think of how much more He loves us because we are His children. 

He loved us so much that He came down to us in the flesh to be the blood sacrifice for our sins so that we may be forgiven.  He spilled His blood for us. He was the lamb that has made us clean before God so that we may well know that we are His children and will spend eternity with Him in heaven. Because of this we stand apart from non-Christians. They see the world differently than we do. As Christians we must not feel worthless or like failures because we are set apart and do see the world differently than non-Christians.

When we sometimes fail or feel worthless because of the things of this world, we should fall back on Jesus to keep us strong.  We may fail in the world, but we can fight that worldly failure from creeping into our love and relationship with Christ. This is so encouraging, isn’t it! I mean, we should be stronger in our attitude towards feeling worthless or that of a failure because Christ is so good!!! What an awesome God we serve, praise, and worship!

“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him,” (1 John 4:9)

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world,” (John 16:33)

Sometimes tribulation can also mean failures in the world that then lead to a feeling of worthlessness. We must keep this at the forefront of our minds: we may fail, we may feel worthless at times, but we have an advocate with us that can overcome those emotions and turn it around for us.  Tribulation is the opposite of peace and Christ wants us to have peace. So even if you fail in the world, you can still have peace in your heart. 

There are things that this world will do that will make it hard to get back from failures to peace. Take for example that the world temps you in one of your seemingly never ending weakness in the world. This can be the temptation to gambling your life away at the slot machines, extramarital affairs- you get what I mean- big things that happen that can lead you to guilt, feelings of worthlessness and make you feel that you are a failure as a Christian. 

You know what? God knows.  He knows your weakness and your shortcomings.  When you face these and feel like a failure in your marriage or your finances, or whatever, it will be hard to overcome these for they are tribulations of your temptations on steroids. Yet, as hard as it might be, as hard and high as the hurdle may seem, you can overcome to make it to peace in Christ. Christ’s mercy and grace, through His sacrifice for us, is something we should be thankful for, joyful of, and can drink of daily.

“And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong,” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

What should we do when the world makes us seem like failures or we feel worthless for our shortcomings in the world that we have to live in?  The above verse says it all. When we fail and fall into temptation, or fail in the world such as our finances or such, Christ is with us. When we get so caught up in the moment that we forget of Christ and what He teaches us and tells us about our life, He is still with us.

We are refined through the fires of troubles, tribulations, infirmities, and any other challenge we may face in life. When you are distressed because you think you failed Christ, don’t despair, but take joy in the fact that not only will you will overcome, but the test you are facing will refine you and your heart to Christ. 

Each trial we face, we have the opportunity to either be refined or feel failure or worthlessness in Christ. I’m striving for refinement.  Even though we may strive, we still sometimes fail because we are sinners in a fallen world.  We are surrounded by secular people who just don’t get it and do their best to suck us into the world as they see it. Yet we can and do overcome those trials in life that really do set us apart from others.

You ever notice the difference in trials between a Christian and a secular person?  We can go through trials and tribulations with a smile on our face, while the secular person looks at us like we are crazy because they are freaking out over the same thing.  We are the face of Christ in times of trials. We have the assurance of God’s love for us while the secular person does not and so does not understand our reaction because they don’t know Christ. This is why we must not let the failures and trials in life effect us: we are the face of Jesus to others, an example to them.

Spiritually speaking, we live in a world dominated by Satan and are strangers in the midst of chaos. Keep this on the forefront of your mind that the world and Satan want to take you away from Christ. He will do his best to persuade you to let go of Christ. He does this through a lot of means including worldly failures. He wants those worldly failures to seep into your faith.  He wants failure in the world make you feel like you are a failure to Christ.  Don’t fall into that trap.

Christ is love. He will never willingly let you go because of some perceived failure. He will draw closer to you, if you let Him, in the times of trials in your life.  He is there for you. He wants you to be close to Him.

Christ doesn’t want you to feel worthless either. In Christ you will have peace. You will have an assurance of love. You are worthy of Christ and His grace and therefore you should have no reason to feel worthless because you are precious to Christ and are His child whom He loves unconditionally.

No matter the failures you have had or the attitude of yourself that you have, it is no reason to be separated from Christ. Christ is here for us. He is here for us to lean on and to run to for comfort when we do fall and feel guilty about ourselves. His grace is enduring and His love is unfathomable.

Don’t let the world get you down. Let Christ lift you up and keep you joyful through the trials you will face. The prize at the end of every trial, every failure you have overcome, is the prize of a stronger relationship with Christ.

Turn to God for strength and assurance. For when you are assured of the love of Christ for you, you cannot feel lik3 a failure or worthless.  You will feel loved and cared because you have Christ in your heart, mind, and soul. Christ is faithful and never changing in His love for you and me. When we finish the race and are taken to heaven, the race of hills and valleys in this world will be worth it, for we will be with Him forever.