Failure or Work-in-Progress?

Each one of them made serious mistakes along the way – but they loved God. Each one of them has a list of things they did wrong which might be longer than the things they did right. We even have record of the ways that some of them messed up – like human beings do – while they were trying to follow God.

I’m referring to the Cloud of Witnesses in Hebrews 11. They include Abraham – who was an adulterer and liar. Sarah, who laughed at God and enabled her husband in adultery. Noah, who built the ark, miraculously floated through the flood, but later became a drunkard.

This could be the end of their stories, but God didn’t abandon them in their mistakes and sins; He saw them through to complete what He had for them to do. In Hebrews 11 we read only that Abraham left his family to serve God, and Sarah received strength from God to conceive and bear the child of promise in her old age. We read the Noah built the ark and participated in God’s plan, enabling his sons to become the progenitors of a new generation of people. We read the final chapters of their lives – the summation of God’s view of them, in spite of their past sins and struggles.

These people are us! They are the pastor down the street that messed up but still wants to follow God (perhaps like the Biblical David). They are the ones who grew from their mistakes and grieved in their hearts because they got off track, like the Israelite’s did, and like we do. They weren’t born under the New Covenant, they sinned terribly while claiming to follow God, and yet they are our examples of faithfulness in the Hall of Faith of Hebrews 11.

This isn’t a list of excuses to sin, but an encouragement to the downtrodden. Whatever mistakes we’ve made, in the end God is looking for the heart that will get back on track and follow wholeheartedly after Him. He will write the final page of your story – and perhaps it will be only Him that sees the faithfulness of your heart. Don't ever, ever, ever, let another person put the stamp of condemnation on you as long as you are still breathing, able to repent and move forward in God!

So I ask you, how do you see others? If they’ve sinned in some way, have you put the ‘dead’ label on their foreheads and called them sinners for life – unable to be used again by God? Do you warn others to stay away from them? If so, look again at Hebrews 11 and see what God calls them – He who knows the heart of each person claims them for His own and calls them faithful. He sees every sin and continues to draw us to Him in spite of it – He continues to call us out of our sin that we would learn from our mistakes and follow Him more closely.

Perhaps it’s time for a shift of focus – a shift that will enable us to see ourselves and others in the way God sees us. God told it like it was in Hebrews 11 – the real story. While we might look at it and see their errors along the way – they were a work in progress; half finished when we read of them in the Old Testament. But the Master, who sees the end from the beginning, recorded their faithfulness and left out their sin because He had removed it as far as the east is from the west. He saw them through heaven’s eyes because they lived life through the eyes of faith!

God help us to have ‘heaven’s eyes’ as we see one another’s mistakes and sins. Help us to encourage one another on to godliness instead of condemning and putting the ‘dead’ stamp on our brothers and sisters.

In the end, God sees us as more than conquerors, and that’s reality!