How To Respond When You Fail In Your Devotion (100 Days Of Discipleship — Day 80) by Apostle Emmanuel Iren: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Response to Failure Is What Defines You

Part of discipleship and maturity is not just knowing how not to fail — it is knowing how to respond when you do. Peter denied Jesus three times. Judas betrayed Him once. By some measures, what Peter did was more egregious — he claimed to not know Jesus at all, when salvation itself is predicated on identifying with Him.

And yet Peter wrote books of the Bible, blessed the church for ages, and died as a martyr of the faith. Judas ended his life. The difference was not the magnitude of the sin — it was the response. Judas sank into despair. Peter got up.

That Desire to Do Better — It Comes From God

Philippians 2:13: "For it is God who works in you to will and to do of his good pleasure."

If you ever find yourself acknowledging that you should be praying more, studying more — that acknowledgement, that desire to do better, comes from God. He is not as far away as you think.

There is a brand of Christianity that gives the false impression that the entire onus is on you to impress God. But God is not a boss you must perform for. He is a trainer — a father — who recognises where His children need to grow and comes alongside them.

Even the Disciples Slept — And Jesus Was Patient

Jesus asked His disciples to pray with Him in the garden of Gethsemane during the most vulnerable night of His earthly life — the night before the cross. They slept three times. He woke them three times. And when they slept, He did not condemn them. He said: "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Brilliant emotional intelligence. Separating their intention from their action. Great spiritual people feel sleepy too. Peter, James, and John — these are not names of small men. They slept when they should have prayed, and they went on to shape history.

Never Allow Despair

Despair is the enemy of growth. Those who worry obsessively about the things they ought not to do tend to get worse. Those who say "it is God who works in me to will and to do" — and keep trying, keep getting back up — God builds in them the habits of godliness over time.

• A righteous man falls seven times and rises again (Proverbs 24:16)
• You feel bad that you slept off, that you didn't pray yesterday — good. Now pray today.
• This is how habits are built: not through one great act of will, but through consistent, imperfect rising

If you cannot fly, run. If you cannot run, walk. If you cannot walk, crawl. Just keep on keeping on. God's plan for your life has not changed — it didn't change for Peter. He was still called the rock.