Have you considered the fact that God expects absolute perfection from you? His expectation is perfection and absolute purity which is IMPOSSIBLE! 2 Timothy 1 says we are called with a “holy calling.” We are told to “be holy as He is holy.” But have you noticed that you can’t??? Have you ever tried??? Try and you are doomed to failure! We can’t be holy. But here’s the key: When we put ourselves away and reckon ourselves dead, embrace and yield to His life, WE ARE HOLY. It is at that point that we experience the life that God has always intended us to have.

But you say, “But it is sooo hard to live for Christ.” And you are sooo right. And it’s not just hard. It is impossible. And that is the lesson in your failure. We are supposed to be learning that we can’t possibly live this life of Christ. And every time you fail you prove that. And that is why God allows all of the failures. God states that the law was our school master. He wants us to figure out that we can’t! And when we come that realization we can finally begin to stop in the power of the flesh.

God keeps teaching me this same lesson in many different ways… Even this last week at Jr. High camp I saw this principle applied once again in a slightly different fashion. This last camp last week was probably the spookiest of all camps I have been a part of in recent years - reason being I felt the most disconnected from what God was doing. It seemed like this camp had much less prep time than others and yet it ended up being, by far, the most fruitful. Unbelievable! God did a great work in so many of our students. And equally encouraging was watching all of our high school students who served as assistant leaders in cabins. The Lord really used them.

Having said all of this, I see that God purposely put us (and me) in a position where I was limited in my ability to prepare like I wanted. He purposely put us in the a position where He was the sole Redeemer. And we were finally in a position where our pollution of His work was more limited. Praise God. We cannot do the work of the ministry! He is the ONLY ONE who can.

So, have you been experiencing failure lately??? - PERFECT! Let it be proof to you that you might as well give up trying to live this Christian life and allow God to live it through you.

Romans 7 is about the impossibility of living for Christ. It simply cannot be, for very long. You always end up failing, getting frustrated, and then trying again only to find yourself failing again. Paul, in verse 18, spoke of the fact that there was nothing good in his flesh. He also talked about always doing the things he didn’t want to and then not doing the things he wanted to do. What’s the point of trying to live for Christ then?

Exactly.  The point of our many failures is teach us the art of more perfectly relying on Christ. The extent to which we go on our own is the extent to which we experience failure. God desires to PROVE TO YOU that you can’t do this thing! So stop trying and simply give yourself over to the Lord afresh and trust His work through you. Where there is failure there is a lesson of dependence waiting to be learned.

I read something from Oswald Chambers again today that came right on the hinges of specific questions I was asking the Lord. It’s funny how Chambers connects “the vision” of God with the person we are. And I think that is exactly what the Lord is doing in our midst… working out/ perfecting/ making us obedient children/ maturing us/ preparing us for THE VISION. This is from Chambers…

“God gives us the vision. He takes us down us to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.

The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don’t lose heart in the process.”
I believe the LORD is speaking to us in all of this… Father, whirl away in our hearts and lives as it pleases You. But don’t let us fall short of Your best. Your will be done here, just like it is done in Heaven. We love You and want You. People: Your current frustrations are necessary to prepare you for THE VISION. Yield, trust, and stop fighting. Let Him take you to the grave of your desires so that you can be free for whatever it is that the Lord has for you.

Joshua 17:14-18  And the children of Joseph spake unto Joshua, saying, Why hast thou given me but one lot and one portion to inherit, seeing I am a great people, forasmuch as the LORD hath blessed me hitherto? And Joshua answered them, If thou be a great people, then get thee up to the wood country, and cut down for thyself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the giants, if mount Ephraim be too narrow for thee. And the children of Joseph said, The hill is not enough for us: and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are of Bethshean and her towns, and they who are of the valley of Jezreel. And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power: thou shalt not have one lot only: But the mountain shall be thine; for it is a wood, and thou shalt cut it down: and the outgoings of it shall be thine: for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.

We have been spending a lot of time in our College family time talking about how God’s promises are for us “this day” and how diligence in some key areas is needed in order to appropriate the blessings of God in our lives. There are certain things God seeks to “work out” in us many times before He continues to bless. For Him, the blessings aren’t the primary thing. THE PRIMARY THING TO GOD IS OUR CONFORMATION TO HIS IMAGE.

So I was looking this morning at this passage of Scripture in my daily reading and was noticing that even after Israel had crossed over into the Promised Land there were still more blessings to receive.

Vs 14  The children of Joseph want more.
Vs 15  They are told to take the hill country. It is wooded but that isn’t the main issue. The enemy is hot and heavy in that region and they have “chariots of iron.”

But what’s Joshua’s response? Basically the same thing we have been talking about for some time now…  They CAN’T NOT WIN. Verse 18 is where Joshua claims the victory and says, “thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.” In other words, they are to BELIEVE. They are to KNOW in spite of the dire circumstances and needs of the moment.
What are the “iron chariots” in your life? What is the thing that is so formidable that you think you can’t win? BELIEVE anyway. KNOW and TRUST and make choices for God in spite of how scary it all is.