I’ve Tried and Failed

~ Maybe That Is The Problem! ~

note:  This is one in a series of Biblical answers to objections some individuals raise when presented with the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ. 

“I’ve tried to live the Christian life before and I failed. I don’t think I can follow through!” 

This is similar to saying, “I will not bother to personally conduct a serious investigation of Jesus Christ because I tried to live a good Christian life before and couldn’t do it.” Such a response doesn’t stand up to the test of logic. But logic is not the main issue. What does God say?

The key issue of true Christianity (versus cults and other religions) is that you are incapable of living the Christian life. You must recognize that fact and allow the Spirit of God to work through you. In other words, if you truly believe and accept Christ as your Savior, your standing before God is done and there is nothing required of you other than to trust in the shed blood of Jesus Christ on your behalf.  In other words, it is not DO but rather it is DONE! 

It Is God Who Delivers You (not your self-effort)  ~  “If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king” (Daniel 3:17).

“Being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform” (Romans 4:21).

It Is God Who Will Save You (not your self-effort)  ~  “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12). 

“Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24). 

“To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4b).

It Is the Spirit of God Who Will Empower You (not your self-effort)  ~  “Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8).

You Can and Will Do It (through God’s help)  ~  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry” (1 Timothy 1:12). 

summary: “The basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of His divine being.

So nobody has a good excuse.

What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life” (Romans 1:19-22, The Message).

~ Robert Lloyd Russell, ABUNDANT LIFE NOW