by David Falk | Download PDF | Purchase Hardcopy

Over the years, I have read a vast amount of motivational and leadership material. My bookshelves are filled with the anecdotes of successful men and women in areas such as sport and business. Certainly, many helpful ideas on mentoring, motivating and leading people can be found in their writings. However, there is one vital principle that is missing. I believe it is our ‘failures’ that define us, not our successes. The gospel is not simply about ‘life’. It is about ‘life out of death’. We’ll recall the words of Nehemiah, ‘The God of heaven will give us success’. Neh 2:20. When we join the dying of our Lord Jesus, God makes us alive together with Him. That is the essential tenet of any ‘success formula’.

When we observe the nature of life, the evidence of death is all around us. We all know that we will die at the end of our years. Every person, whether Christian or not, is subject to mortality. Failing psychological well-being, illness and the many physical problems that beset people, are evidence of death. No one is exempt from this. And for this reason, you do not find the life of Christ until you learn the principle of the seed. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, ‘That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies’. 1 Cor 15:36. A seed must fall into the ground to die, otherwise it abides alone. But if it dies, it produces much fruit. That principle is firmly impregnated in the fabric of the Scriptures. Jesus died and the Father raised Him from the dead. Accordingly, we read a marvelous little passage in the book of Acts. ‘He ... presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs.’ Acts 1:3.

With this in view, how do you cope with failure? When you face affliction, your core attitudes will soon spring to the surface. This shows the nature and condition of your heart. For most people, this reveals attitudes and responses that need to change. If you embrace the affliction, it will enhance your capacity for life. Affliction stimulates your abilities; It enlivens you. Your failures certainly have the potential to define you. However, you need to learn from them, as opposed to resisting or avoiding them. Personally, I love the saying, “A good day never taught you anything”. Or you could say, “If you’ve never made a mistake, you’ve never learnt anything”. When I observe someone making a mistake, I know they are having a go in life. There is no need to be afraid of making mistakes. The apostle Paul said, ‘For whatever is not from faith is sin’. Rom 14:23. If you are living by faith, making unintentional mistakes is not sin. Be prepared to own your mistakes, learn from them, and move on. Live by faith. 

We read in the writings of Habakkuk, ‘Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls’. Hab 3:17. The prophet described an extremely dire situation. However, he continued, ‘Yet will I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation’. Hab 3:17-18. In a similar way, Jesus said, ‘In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer’. John 16:33. Sometimes, you may wonder if Jesus followed a logical thought pattern. How could He speak about ‘tribulation’ and ‘cheer’ in the same breath?  This word ‘cheer’ has the connotation of being joyful. But more than that, it is a joy that requires us to be courageous.

We could say that the first level of affliction is a tight spot. We’ll all be familiar with that sort of situation. When you are in a tight spot, you will need to show courage by warring against your innate responses and emotions. ‘When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to His voice’. Deut 4:30. These words of Moses tell us to obey the voice of the Lord when we find ourselves in a tight spot. In times of distress, is our first response to listen for the Lord’s voice? Or do we immediately default to our instinctive responses? There is a wisdom from beneath, where we live, that is ‘earthy’, ‘sensual’, according to our natural senses. James 3:15. ‘Earthy’ simply means that our responses are made according to what the eye naturally sees.

However, we do not wrestle with flesh and blood. Eph 6:12. In the book of Nehemiah, we read the account of Sanballat and Tobiah who fiercely opposed the rebuilding of the walls in Jerusalem. During this time, the Jews were endeavoring to restore the city after returning from captivity in Babylon. Under the leadership of godly men, they were seeking to rebuild the temple, re-establish the priesthood, and reactivate the offerings. However, Sanballat and Tobiah were among a host of enemies that constantly sought to hinder them. According to the prophet Zechariah, it was Satan himself who was standing to oppose them. Sanballat and Tobiah were the human representatives of a demonic host. Nehemiah came to understand this activity in the heavenly places and the spiritual influence that sought to disrupt the work of God. Accordingly, He was able to prepare the nation for the warfare.  

Nehemiah said to these two men, ‘The God of heaven will give us success; therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no portion, right or memorial in Jerusalem.’ Neh 2:20. No ‘right’ could equally be translated as no ‘righteousness’, which means no ‘pathway’. We’ll recall the words of the psalmist, ‘He leads me in the path of righteousness.’ Psa 23:3. In effect, Nehemiah was telling these men that they had nowhere to go because they were enslaved to their ‘earthy’, sensual, instinctive responses. They were not in touch with the living God. Equally, they had no ‘portion’ in the land. We will have no portion in the Lord’s kingdom if we live according to our instinctive responses. We’ll resist all the contradictions of life and never let our mistakes and failures define us.

Finally, Nehemiah told them they had ‘no memorial in Jerusalem’. They had no remembrance before God. It is reassuring to know that God does remember you when you live by faith in the midst of your trials. When you are in the depths of your adversity and being reproached, God does remember you. Again, it is how you respond to your affliction and adversity that will define you in life. The psalmist was able to rejoice, ‘The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places’. Psa 16:6. He was speaking about the lines of his person. This is the memorial that God Himself has of you. He remembers you according to the lines that He defined for you.

Depending on how you respond in life, you also define yourself. I’m not speaking about what you determine yourself to be, or what you decide to do. You define yourself according to the attitude that emerges in you, and the character that is formed in you, during times of affliction. Paul wrote to the Romans, ‘We also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance.’ Rom 5:3. In the Scriptures, ‘tribulation’ means the crushing of a grape in a wine press. Gethsemane, the place of Jesus’ deep tribulation before His death, means the olive press that produces oil. Your affliction is crushing you like the wine of the communion and the oil of the lampstand. ‘But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities.’ Isa 53:5. The word ‘bruised’ can equally be translated as ‘crushed’, so He was ‘crushed for our iniquities’. If you are going to walk in His stead, you will know crushing.

Affliction produces perseverance, and perseverance produces ‘proof’. The New American Standard version says ‘proven character’. The New King James version calls it ‘character’. But the word is ‘proof’.  Affliction proves and substantiates you as a person. What you emerge to be from affliction is who you are. It is what you retain. It may seem that affliction subtracts from you. You emerge as less than you were. That is the evidence of death. However, if you persevere in the affliction, then the Spirit of Christ rests upon you. You are changed from one degree of glory to another. He makes you alive together with Christ.  

‘But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the one an aroma from death to death, to the other an aroma from life to life.’ 2 Cor 2: 14-16. The Old Testament offerings, burnt by the priests on the altar in the tabernacle, emitted an aroma. This was probably what the apostle Paul was talking about when he referred to the ‘sweet aroma’. The fragrance was a result of the fire under the offering and the pouring of the drink offering. We want to manifest the ‘sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him’, but this only happens as we allow the fire of affliction to touch our lives.

As a Christian, you are not just alive. You are alive from the dead. Paul wrote to the Colossians, ‘When you were dead in your transgressions … He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven all our transgressions’. Col 2:13. And having come alive from the dead, you die daily. How you submit to ‘dying daily’, in all the impulses of your heart, intentions and thoughts, defines you as a person. I want to encourage you in your afflictions to embrace them as the sufferings of Christ. Don’t become stoic or detached from others. Don't hold your ground; don’t keep your counsel; don’t reserve your judgment, and don’t hold your view. Humble yourself and rejoice. Recall the words of Jesus, ‘Be of good cheer’. Rejoice in tribulation. Jesus said, ‘Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you’.  John 16:22. 

You won't know the reason for your affliction until you come through the season of it, having applied yourself to joy, courage, patience and proof. Then you will know that you have a ‘righteousness’, that is, you have a pathway to walk. And you will have a portion in the kingdom, and a memorial before God. In the words of Nehemiah, ‘The God of heaven will give us success; therefore we His servants will arise’. Neh 2:20. When God gives you success, you have something that no one can take from you. Success in life is not simply about winning personal victories. The apostle Paul said, ‘But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ’. 2 Cor 2:14. That is not an assertion of positive thinking. It’s a statement of faith in the grace of God.  

This is the contradiction of the gospel. The Lord is always taking something to nothing before He is bringing something from nothing! Death always comes before life. Paul said, ‘So then death works in us but life in you’. 2 Cor 4:12. That is the success formula.

Author: David Falk | Toowoomba Christian Fellowship TCF
Published by Vision One at Toowoomba Christian Fellowship TCF
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