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Pastor Jay's Blog

You Have Never Disappointed God

 

 

 

When it comes to relational failures, being disappointed is bad but being a disappointment is even worse.  Failing to come through when people are counting on you is one of the deepest kinds of shame a person can feel.  Our very worth is brought into question because now people will regard us as having some degree of evil or incompetence.  This can result in a lingering fear.  We fear the failings that will come at some point in the future and what additional damage this will do.  This lingering fear can become paralyzing. 

Because this happens between people, it is not hard to imagine this happening between a person and God.  When people sin in a shocking or especially costly way, they can begin to think of themselves as a disappointment to God.  God was counting on them to faithfully carry out the calling and responsibility he gave them and now he has to work around their mess. 

Thankfully, the above paragraph isn’t true.  You have never been a disappointment to God.  And even more wonderfully, because of this reality, we can face our failures squarely and address them in redemptive and productive ways.  Let’s see how that happens.

First, in what way have we never disappointed God?  Disappointment happens because expectations exist, and expectations only exist in creatures who are guessing at reality.  If I pick up a chocolate chip cookie and expect that cookie to taste amazing, I am severely disappointed when I discover some fool put raisins in there instead of chocolate chips.  This disappointment happens because I didn’t know what the true reality was.  I had to guess and my guess was wrong.  I was disappointed.  But God never guesses at reality.  He know the total truth about every facet of everything, including you and me.  He knows the sin that lurks in the deepest places I don’t even know about.  Therefore, when that sin comes out, he is not surprised.  He knew it was there, and was even sovereign in exposing it. 

Second, this truth is glorious.  God’s love for us is not because he thinks we are so lovely.  He loves us knowing all our ugliness.  We have no hidden parts.  He see all of us and he loves us anyway.  For what reason?  Let’s say it again, it is not because we are so lovely.  My friend, he loves us in order to display his own loveliness.  And one of the loveliest things about him is how his loveliness makes us lovely.  His glory will transform us, which only heightens his glory.   His glorious grace will conform us to the image of his Son (Rom.8:29), which is our highest good, and that very work and the end result becomes an ultimate display of his glory. So then, as 2 Corinthians 1:20 says, “therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.”

Finally, because you have so great a hope as stated above, you can confront every sin truthfully.  You may have disappointed people, but they are not the most important people in this event.  God knew all that was going to happen and he is at work even now.  You can repent and put on the righteousness he is calling you to.  You can do what Paul did, “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3:13-14

 Therefore, God is not disappointed in you.  He knows all of your sin, he knows every way it will ever manifest itself, and he knows how he will gloriously finish what he started in you until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6).

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