Stop beating yourself up
‘We all stumble in many ways.’ James 3:2 NIV
(2011 Edition)
When you sin, God’s Spirit will convict you of your
need to repent and change your ways. But until you
get your glorified body in heaven, you’re always
going to deal with sin. The apostle James wrote,
‘We all stumble in many ways.’ But falling down
isn’t what makes you a failure - it’s staying down!
Get back up, dust yourself off, receive God’s grace,
learn from the experience, and move on. The Bible
says, ‘There is now no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1 NIV 2011 Edition).
God is not condemning you, so stop condemning
yourself. A few decades ago, people used to wear a
little badge with the letters GNFWMY. It meant,
‘God’s not finished with me yet.’ And He’s not
finished with you either.

Sometimes we’re guilty of doing the wrong thing with the right motive. For example, in 1957 Ford Motors described the new
Edsel as ‘the car of the decade’. Try telling that to
all those drivers whose doors wouldn’t close,
whose horns stuck, and whose transmissions failed!
And remember the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy,
where the architect designed a 10-foot-deep
foundation for a 179-foot-tall building? How’d you
like to have that on your CV? The fact is, the most
talented people often make the biggest mistakes.

Solomon wrote, ‘There is not a righteous man on
earth who does what is right and never
sins’ (Ecclesiastes 7:20 NIV 1984 Edition). And
Paul added, ‘I am not perfect. But Christ has taken
hold of me. So I keep on running and struggling to
take hold of the prize’ (Philippians 3:12 CEV). So,
stop beating yourself up. Shalom