Success and Failure Blog

BY CARLA HINTON | NewsOK.com – How can a loving, powerful God allow disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis to wreak havoc and destroy lives? It’s a question that has “kept seminarians up at night,” said Robert P. Jones, Ph.D., chief executive officer of the Public Religion Research Institute. His comments come as the institute releases findings from a survey conducted one week after a March 11 earthquake triggered a catastrophic tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan.

The survey, conducted by the Washington-based institute in partnership with Religion News Service, found that a majority of Americans, 56 percent, say God is in control of everything that happens in the world. However, less than four in 10 (38 percent) believe earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters are a sign from God, and fewer (29 percent) believe God sometimes punishes nations for the sins of their citizens.

“Generally speaking, what we see in this poll is that Americans basically have a more natural than supernatural view of disasters,” Jones said. He said one exception proved to be white evangelical Protestants. The survey found that among evangelicals, about six out of 10 (59 percent) believe natural disasters are a sign from God, and a smaller majority (53 percent) believe God judges nations for the sins of some citizens.

Jones said white evangelical Protestants tend to be more likely to approach the Bible literally, “and of course in the Bible, we have plenty of examples of floods, earthquakes, fires — all kinds of things that are attributed in Scripture to signs from God or God’s judgment.” Read more

Folks, f you believe God doesn’t punish nations for disobedience and sinfulness, then you haven’t read the Bible.  God’s words verbatim – “spare the rod, spoil the child”  (Proverbs 13:24).  If God thinks this is good instruction for our children, then we can only expect He applies it to His children, right? After all, sinners or saints, we are all God’s children.

Does this sound familiar? :

Hosea 9 1-3 :  Punishment for Israel 1 Do not rejoice, Israel; do not be jubilant like the other nations.

For you have been unfaithful to your God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor. 2 Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people; the new wine will fail them. 3 They will not remain in the LORD’s land;

Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria.

“If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.”              — Mary Pickford, Canadian actress

If you have a strong, unwavering faith in the Lord, He will guide you, even in the least productive times in your life.  You are still God’s child, in times of success as well as in times of failure.  He continues to love you (and me) even through our difficult phases.  God does not hold your transgressions against you, as the world does.

Romans 8;1-3 NIV Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man.

He promises to give you new life, even when you have failed in your endeavors.

Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.

But what must you do? You must trust God with this promise. You may not know what the future holds for you, but this is where your faith must kick into gear.

Having faith in God will keep you on the right path even in the midst of failure.

“There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.”          — Elbert Hubbard, American writer

*** Questions listed were taken from A Faithful Failure by John Stanks.

Lots of people were asking, in the hours after Tiger Woods’ admission of “transgressions,” what in the world are transgressions?  It’s not a car part or the newest sandwich at your favoriate fast food place (though dieters might think it one), but instead, a word which, if we understand, can give us real success.

King David, in the Old Testament, committed much worse ones than Tiger Woods. He lusted after one of his generals’ wives, Bathsheba, had an affair which resulted in pregnancy, then – when the general, Urriah, wouldn’t sleep with his wife Bathsheba – had him killed and married her.

When he realized that God knew just what had happened, even if he’d hidden it from everyone else, he wrote Psalm 51.  It was his true, heartfelt prayer to God. At the end of the first verse, he pleads with God, according to His tender mercies, to “blot out” his transgressions.

Transgressions are sins. But, the word carries a greater meaning – it shows the stain that sin creates.  A stain that must be blotted out, just as a blotter is used to clean up ink. (No, I’m not old enough to remember using those, but I do love history.)

Our society doesn’t think about the consequences of their actions.  Therefore, we don’t really think about transgressions.  It’s a word that shows we have stains on our hearts, on our lives, that require cleansing.  Just as Davis prayed for God to blot out his transgressions, we all need ours blotted out.

Why? because we are all sinners.  Not everyone would do what Tiger Woods did – and certainly not many people would ever act as King David did.  But, those stains upon our hearts mean that we can’t enter Heaven.  Heaven is a perfect place, where there is no pain, no suffering, no tears.  There can be no sin there.  If there was even one little bit of sin in Heaven, it could make someone suffer, and then it would not be Heaven anymore.

It’s interesting that this came out around Christmas.  Because, this is when we celebrate God’s gift to us.  He came into this world to be born of a virgin, to live a perfect life, and to take the punishment for our sins, the just for the unjust, when He died on the cross and rose from the dead.  He did blot out our transgressions.

David had faith to know that would happen someday.  I don’t know Tiger Woods’ heart, so I don’t know if he’s truly repentent – I do pray that he is.  But, this is a good reminder that each of us has transgressions in our lives.

We haven’t all committed every sin. But, we each have stains in our actions, words, or thoughts – remember, Jesus says that if we lust after someone we’ve committed adultery in our hearts. These are stains on our record that God must blot out.  Instead of an ink blotter, though, we have the only thing that can blot out our transgressions.  It is the perfect blood of our sinless Savior, Jesus Christ, which was shed for each of us.

It is only through faith in His finished work on the cross as blotting out our transgressions that we can go to Heaven. This is because only His blood can wash away the stain. It also allows us to have a relationship here with Him on Earth, so He can help us through all the problems and pitfalls of life.  God wants to have a personal relationship with each of us.