Failing Forward

Scripture: Matthew 26:31-32
31 On the way, Jesus told them, “Tonight all of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say,‘God will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ 32 But after I have been raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there.”

Observations:
The day before his execution Jesus tells his disciples that not a single one of them was as committed to Him as they thought they were and that would all deliberately turn away from Him when He needed them most. Not exactly the best way to instill confidence in the twelve guys upon which the future success of your movement is totally dependent. The Bible says that when Jesus told them that they all denied it. I imagine thatafter His words rang true that each of them felt irrepairably disconnected from Jesus. But the one redeeming factor about their failure is that Jesus saw it coming. He wasn't shocked or disappointed. He knew they would fail but He also knew that all of them would recover because He gave them the grace to be restored. His words in this passage showed that He was anticipating the moment they would "meet Him" again.

Application:
It's pretty reassuring to know that God knows everything about us: past, present, and future, and yet He still loves us anyway despite our previous failures and the times we will fail Him in the future. That doesn't mean our actions don't matter or that God will magically make everything ok regardless of our choices, but it does mean that God's grace to restore us when we royally mess up was available to us even before it happened. If that's true then the same grace that can lead us back to God is also powerful enough to help us in the moment and can also prevent us from making those decisions that will lead us away from Christ in the first place. We can all be sure that our devotion to Christ will surely be tested and our committment will be exposed for what it truly is, which may not always be good news. However, if we will embrace God's grace that is offered to us we will always find the power of God to overcome.

Prayer:
Father, thank you for your grace that has sustained me in the past, is supporting me now, and is available to enable me to live in victorious relationship with You. I committ myself entirely to You today, failures and all, trusting in your love to help us choose today to follow You. Amen.

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