Failures in life should not devastate us, they can be and should be growing experiences. We learn from our failures, unless we refuse to admit them.
There are those who look down their noses at others for failures as though they themselves had none. Everyone has failures, the difference between a wise man and a fool is that the wise man admits the failure, moving on toward corrections and personal growth. The fool pretends they have no failures while remaining emotional and spiritual infants merely to maintain a superficial appearance of personal perfection.
Those who cannot confess sin or admit failure cannot grow in maturity or spiritually.
What does the Bible say about
Failure
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
"But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
Romans 5:3-5
"3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
The question is; "do we want to grow in holiness, becoming spiritually mature believers? Or are we content to be arrogant, superficially minded?
When we do not grow we regress, there is no such thing as stagnation, there is only going forward to backward.
The truth about our Salvation, when we become born again.
Ephesians 1:13-14
13 In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is given as a pledge (guarantee/promise) of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory."
Ephesians 4:30
"30 Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."
Ephesians 2:8-9
"8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."
YES!!! There is a rapture and it is for the church who have been born again before the tribulation period. God does not beat up on His bride before taking them home to the marriage supper of the Lamb. Those of us who are born again will be taken to the marriage supper before the tribulation.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
"Those Who Died in Christ
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
1 Corinthians 15:50-58
"50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.
55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;
57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."
The account of Enoch being taken up was a picture of the rapture, also Noah rescued from the wrath of God as well as Lot.
Hebrews 11:5-6
"5 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he did not see death. He could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. 6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him."
Genesis chapters 6-9 speak of the account of Noah. Genesis 19 speaks about Lot being taken out of Sodom.
It is not a hard subject to understand, one merely has to read the Bible and believe it. God gave us examples of these events to help us understand the purpose and nature of the rapture.
Why do you do things? Do you do them because others think you should, or are you hearing from the Holy Spirit to determine actions.
When you don't know what you want to do with your life, do not ask others, do not base your decisions on how others might interpret what you might do. Yes, you can counsel with those who have already been experienced in a particular area, but ultimately you must take the information from counselors to Christ. Just because something worked for others does not mean God wants you to do that thing their way.
God may even direct you to those who are more experienced in something, but that direction is from Him, not from others.
Base your actions on the direction of the Holy Spirit, always seeking Him. He knows exactly what you should do, people only have their own opinions, they do not know God's will for you.
Does it make sense to ask others when they do not know you or the future for you?
Christ Who lives in believers knows what tomorrow will bring and His purposes in it, we only know today and everyone else only knows what today has brought, they only have guesses about what will happen today.
Base your decisions on the Bible and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He knows His own will for us and He knows the dangers and blessings ahead of us.
John 16:13-14 "13 However, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me by taking from what is Mine and disclosing it to you.…"
I believe, this is just me, that those who are left behind after the rapture, having rejected Christ, will be sent the strong dilution, that being that aliens from outer space snatched the bad people away to make a better world as a part of that dilution. It is my belief that the great dilution will have many components that are all validating and enhancing the power of the anti-christ.
I am seeing inklings of this kind of thinking on the internet right now. The powers that be will deceive the remaining people that God took out the evil ones to begin making the perfect world.
Sadly there are theologies propagating the idea that the Christians must bring on the Christ through efforts to clean up the world. I want to ask them, "how is that working out for you." We don't see the world getting better, we see it getting worse as the Bible tells us it would.
2 Timothy 3:12-14 "…12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly lives in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13 while evil men and Imposters go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 But as for you, continue in the things you have learned and firmly believed, since you know from whom you learned them.…"
We can see right now how they are setting up this dilution, really having been in play the past 40 years as more and more people believe in extra terrestrials. I saw the fascination with aliens from other planets emerging way back when I was in my twenties. I researched Christian writings on it at the library before there was internet. It was probably not the beginning then, but it was beginning to become more mainstream, even believing Christians were confused and questioning all this.
When we know that demons are the perpetrators of these false miracles, we have our explanation. So many people are willing to believe things without scientific evidence, only experiences and guesses, since imagination has been elevated to the status of fact, there is no stopping any dilution from becoming accepted in our culture.
We also know in a "bad trip" on LSD, someone can see spiders crawling all over them, becoming completely insane with fear as they try to remove the spiders, the spiders are even biting them, they can feel it, but the spiders are not there at all. This is the same principle I believe is at work in the minds of those who believe they have been abducted by aliens, they really see it, they feel it, but it is not really there, its all in their own minds, placed there by devils.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-10 " 9 The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder, 10 and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.…"
The fascination with the occult and extra terrestrials is growing in television programming and in movies. Fantasy thinking in nearly every area of many people's lives has afforded them the luxury of believing what ever they want and claiming it is truth because they believe it.
Even Christians today are relying more on their desires and fantasies than they are truth from the Bible. We have much wrong doctrine and violation of God's Word because of this lazy thinking. If you question the truth of what I have said there is an easy way to test it. Just mildly disagree with or challenge someone on a wrong believe and watch what comes out of them. Often "church people" will rage and even avoid us when we use the Bible as the standard for belief.
Judges 21:25 " 25 In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
When we see these false miracles or manifestations we must reject them, stay closely to the words of the Scriptures to remain untouched by the world. The more we know truth the less likely we are to be deceived by these terrible lies. Remember, if you are a believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit, He will warn you.
John 8:31-32 "31 So He said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
This is very common, when families place pressure on another family member to be with people who are not only bad for them, but do not honor God. Cognitive dissonance is an interesting concept, basically it is when we go against our own beliefs to please others. Sometimes its hard to obey God when we know entire families will judge us for not doing what they do or showing up where they show up. We live in a shame based culture in which there will be punishment on the part of family members for daring to walk our own walk on a different path.
Women who have remained in the home all their lives might relate to what I am about to say.
Narcissists are not satisfied with doing their own thing, they must intimidate others into accepting them and even doing what they do. The feminists have managed to brainwash many women into thinking they are without value unless they are bringing in an income to supplement their husband's earnings.
The world is getting worse because we are in the end times, that's why it is so important to know what the 2 Timothy 3 crowd looks like.
I don't have many friends except on facebook, because I have been in the home for 46 years taking care of my family, it was seen by many as a lower position in life, sadly.
Having been treated shamefully by family members who see me as stupid for not having a "career", I spend a lot of time being ignored at family functions because I had no talk about a "career. And yet my life was busier and more diverse than most working women. I worked hard in the home, as hard or harder than any woman who went outside the home to earn money.
We lived on my husband's income all these years and are completely out of debt for most of those years. I don't think women go to work for the money, they do it to appear successful by having a "career." I don't say these things to brag, only to demonstrate that it can be done if one is frugal.
I saved us lots of money by doing things that many people pay others to do, including painting the outside of several of our houses whenever we moved. I did the yard work, sewing and mending, cooking, errands for needs for the home and even volunteer work.
It is amazing how many things people buy today that are completely unnecessary while have a hard time paying the real bills, causing women to work outside the home, thinking they need all these things.
Over the years I have been left out of conversations as a non-entity, treated as though I had no brain for my choices, but I have a clear conscience and much joy that I obeyed God.
Nearly all women can do what I did, they just have to resolve themselves to the dedication of their family. I have always been fulfilled, never bored, a little lonely at times as the only homemaker in the neighborhood, but too busy to feel it much.
We used to live in a world in which all the women were home supporting their families as one would a company as the CEO. It was normal for women to take care of all the homemaking tasks, this freed the man up to be able to work bringing in the necessary money that was needed for the family.
God gave each of us roles, the man to earn the living and the women to use it to take care of family life for everyone in the household.
If one takes a close look at Proverbs 31 we see that the woman did all the household managing and even took some of her household money to buy a field as an investment. She did not work outside the home five days a week leaving the care of that household to others, the field was only a part of her duties.
Managing a business is a big job, arranging for everything to get done while shopping for the best buys to make the money go as far as needed. The Proverbs 31 woman was not a wasteful woman, she was dedicated to doing the best job possible, excellence for her home as well as managing the money well.
Of course over the years I had to learn how to manage the money well, it didn't come naturally for me, I made mistakes that had to be corrected, but the learning came as I went along.
No matter what income one has, if it is managed properly without spending on unnecessary things, it can be enough. Choosing a smaller house, leaving off things like cable tv, internet and other unnecessary things will leave the household with enough money to pay all the bills.
The fun stuff is only for those who have extra money after the bills are paid and there is enough in savings for important emergencies.
I know this is not going to sit well with some people who think the fun stuff is necessary, I am here to tell you it is not! We can be happy and fulfilled without all the play things we think we want. There was a times early in our marriage when there was no cable tv, no internet and only one car in the marriage. We still don't have cable tv, the cost is outrageous, we can afford it but I don't want to waste our money that way.
Often, getting the play things seem important, but once they come into the house they are used for a little while and then sit in the corner of a closet unused. We tire of things quickly, its human nature to want something we will never use. I know because the walls of my house have hangings that came from garage sales and thrift stores, they are not needed, if we could not afford them, I would not do it.
Lastly, we do not need the best of everything. We can live on garage sales and thrift stores but only on a budget and for necessary things. We don't need to eat out in restaurants either, I know many will think this is necessary, but there also was a day when doing something like this was once a year for a special occasion, mostly people ate at home.
If one evaluates every thing they are thinking of buying, most of it will not be needed, they could set the money aside and watch it pile up as they realize how little we buy that we need.
Philippians 4:19 "19 And my God will supply all your NEEDS according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus."
Did we see that? "NEEDS", not wants!!! We need food and clothing and probably far less of those things than we think.
