TAKE HEART!

Have you ever felt like a failure? As a Christian, do you feel like you blow it more than you succeed? Then take heart, my friend, you are in good company.

Moses killed a man, ran for his life and hid in the desert for 40 years til God spoke to him from the burning bush and sent him to Pharoah with stammering lips and a rod in his hand. He also went into the mountain of God and when he returned his face shone from being in the very presence of God. What a life of ups and downs he had. God used him in a powerful way, but then the day came when he lost his temper, struck the rock instead of speaking to it as God commanded and he forfeited his opportunity to see the promised land of Canaan.

We would see that as total failure. He blew it big time. The very thing he had been aiming for, struggling to achieve and waiting a lifetime to see he lost in the strike of that rock. As you read God's pronouncement of the consequences of his action, you almost get the feeling that God says "OK, Moses. I'm done with you. You blew it. That was your last chance." Somehow we get the feeling that God just sort of wrote him off at that point. We would have.

But praise God He is not us.

Hear instead what God did. He took Moses up into the mountains overlooking Canaan and showed him what he would miss. Then He said,

"'This is the land which I swore unto Abraham, Isaac and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed. I have caused thee to see it with thine own eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.' So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab [NOT Canaan], according to the word of the Lord. And HE [GOD] buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor; but no man knows of his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old whne he died; his eye was not dim nor his natural force abated.....And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord KNEW FACE TO FACE!" Deut. 34: 4-7, 10

After all the times Moses blew it....after all his failures....even after God had to exact punishment on him that must have broken His heart...God took him up and let him see what he was missing. Then, not to leave him behind while the others got to go forward, God took him home and tenderly and personally buried him Himself. Then He recorded for all time that there has not been a prophet since in all Israel like Moses who the Lord knew FACE TO FACE!!

Not a bad epitaph for one who made so many mistakes. Sure wouldn't mind having that written on MY tombstone!

But Moses was not the only one that God used and favored in spite of their mistakes and failures.

Abraham ran ahead of God and had a child by his handmaiden [with the help of his wife of course]. He lied about who his wife was, not once but twice. Yet God called Abraham his friend.

David committed about every sin there is....yet God called David a man after His own heart.

Those are just to name a few.

So today if you feel like you've just blown it AGAIN and that God must be getting pretty tired of your miserable failures. Take heart from these and know that GOD LOVES YOU!

He loves you....

IMMEASUREABLY...........there are no limits to His love.

INFINITELY............forever and always

UNCONDITIONALLY.........no strings attached. Not "I'll love you IF" and not "If you do this wrong, I'll stop loving you". HE JUST LOVES!!!!!!!!!!!

His patience is not like ours. He never gives up on us. He never lets go.

Take heart, my friend. God isn't finished with you yet!!