My Failure as a Christian
Every Christian has a witness and a testimony. As witnesses, filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8; 2:4), we speak of the Person and work of Jesus Christ, our Lord. The born again are bold, yet humbled, for we are not ashamed of the Gospel of grace (Rom 1:16–17). The Gospel tells us what God in Christ has done, “He saved us (Titus 3:5),” which is why His name is “Jesus” (Mt 1:21).
Our Christian witness always has God in Christ as the subject, whereas, one’s testimony puts us into the role of testifying about one’s relationship with Christ. The Christian witness is shared by all believers because it is written in Scripture (Jn 5:39). One’s personal testimony belongs to each individual believer.
The Christian’s witness of Christ can be validated or reproved by Scripture; therefore, it is exceedingly more reliable than one’s testimony. Sin convolutes one’s testimony. We have unreliable thoughts and feelings. We forget details. The story changes over time. The story can easily shift focus, to invite pride into the telling.
When Christians begin to learn and apprehend the doctrines of grace, their self-assessment of themselves plummets. Learning the doctrine of the total depravity of humanity, the believer sees the vanity, the futility of one’s life. Boasting in performance becomes absurd. The life of works is replaced by a life of faith (Gal 2:20), in the One who is faithful and true (Rev 19:11).
There is no doubt, a change in desire for the adopted child of God (Rom 8:15, 23), who has been transferred into Christ (Col 1:13). The desire is to live godly in Christ Jesus, with an ambition to please Him (2 Cor 5:9), which can only be done by faith (Heb 11:6), which is a gift of God (Eph 2:8), granted to God’s elect (Phil 1:29), by the will of God (Jn 1:13), when we were brought forth by God’s Word of truth (Jas 1:18).
The wicked unbeliever boasts in his pride of performance, never giving credit or thanksgiving to God his Maker (Rom 1:18). This is repulsive to the Christian, who knows the truth about sinful men. Suppressing the truth, as children of the devil (1 Jn 3:10), it is man’s effort to steal glory from God, in the twisted quest to become like gods (Gen 3:5). Men lie to make themselves look good.
The Bible confronts sinners, revealing God’s assessment that there is no one good and none righteous before Him (Rom 3:10–12). The natural man (1 Cor 2:14), dead in his sins (Eph 2:1), does not comprehend the light of truth (Jn 1:5) that exposes him as evil (Eph 5:11). The Holy Spirit convicts people of sin (Jn 16:8), but without grace, men only harden their hearts upon hearing the Word of true judgment (Jn 3:18; Jude 7). They hate God (Rom 1:30), especially Jesus (Jn 15:18–19) because He makes them look bad.
To put on Christ is to put on humility. There is a false humility, contrived by those who quietly think more highly of themselves than they ought to (Rom 12:3). These are the whitewashed tombs occupied by the outwardly religious (Mt 23:27). Because man looks at the outward appearance, his judgment of others is skewed (1 Sam 16:7). The religious Pharisee earns the respect of all but the most discerning. Jesus had to repeatedly warn His disciples about the Pharisees because His disciples were fooled by external religion, too (Mt 16:6, 11, 12).
It is God who searches the heart (1 Sam 16:7), and when He convicts His own of their sin, the response is an awareness of failure upon failure. The child of God, who judges himself, concludes that he is an unprofitable slave (Lk 17:10). He refrains, “O wretched man than I am (Rom 7:24).” The believer knows the ugly truth about himself. He deflects all praise, by insisting that he himself is the “chief of sinners (1 Tim 1:15).”
It is an abomination when men take credit for their being in a state of justification before God, “I have decided to accept Jesus as my Savior, by my own free will and choice, and now I am going to make Him be the Lord of my life.” Sit down you arrogant creature! Repent of your lordship over Christ.
It is likewise an abomination when Christians take credit for their sanctification, when they advocate for works-based holiness, by way of self-achieved obedience. The fact is that as long as you occupy your body of sin and death, you will fail to meet the standard of God’s Law for holiness. We walk by faith, not by compliance. The Christian must embrace the truth about himself, “I am a failure as a Christian. I know what is right, but I do not do what is right, except when grace works in me. I am what I am, only by the grace of God.”
Christian, here is the Good News. Despite your conception and birth into rebel humanity, God has chosen to have mercy on your soul (Rom 9:15–16), and mercy is scheduled for your body on the day of resurrection (Jn 5:25–29), at the second coming of Christ (Mt 24–25; Mk 13; Lk 21). The life you now live is a paradox. Although your body of death is wasting away, your spirit is being renewed day by day (2 Cor 4:16).
The civil war between the Spirit and your flesh will end on the day your body returns to the dust from which it came (Gal 5:17). The truth is that you, like every other Christian, are scrap, salvaged from the burning trash heap of eternal hell. Trash does not choose to be salvaged, nor does it have any idea how to be recycled into something useful. Christian, be content with what you are…in Christ Jesus.
But God, being rich in mercy, has chosen to save you and prepare you for a glory to be revealed to us (Rom 8:18; 9:23). Despite your failures, His promise remains. He will finish His work in you (Phil 1:6); and He will present you holy and blameless before the Father (Eph 1:4; Eph 5:27; Col 1:22), along with all the saints. It is His will, His work, His performance, and His glory that will stand for all eternity. In this, it is impossible to fail to obtain His victory (2 Cor 2:14; 1 Jn 5:4), which He freely gives to Christian failures like me.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
November 7, 2022
