Admitting Your Mistakes
Live Prayer Daily Devotional November 28 2009
(Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:8)
Major corporations and businesses pay tens of thousands of dollars each year to men and women to come in and “motivate” their employees. “Life coaches” are paid 5-figure fees by company CEOs and top executives to help them through the day to day grind of managing their professional and private lives. The fact is, if these corporations and key executives simply got the FREE Daily Devotional from Liveprayer each day, they would not only save a huge amount of money, but the employees and top executives would get the best motivation and coaching possible right from God’s Word!
Today, I am going to “coach” you in what many may see as a simple issue everyone deals with in life. However, for those who are successful and prosperous it is a HUGE hurdle that most who have “made it” by the world’s standards fail to clear. That is being able to say “I am wrong” when you make a mistake. It is the ability to admit your mistakes, humble yourself, and take responsibility for your choices and actions. This is a critical issue everyone has to deal with every day.
You see my friend, the Bible clearly tells us that we have all sinned and come short of God’s glory. In the book of 1 John, the Word actually says that we all sin, and if we say we don’t we are liars! During the course of each day, we sin, we make mistakes, we exercise poor judgment, we make horrible choices. Nobody, NOBODY is immune from this. The key is how do we handle the mistakes we make during the course of a day?
There was no better example of how NOT to handle your mistakes than Martha Stewart. If you listened to her statement on the courthouse steps after being sentenced several years ago, if you saw her interviews with Barbara Walters and Larry King, you saw a woman who was defiant, unrepentant, showed no remorse, no contrition, and instead of accepting responsibility for her actions, was still blaming everyone else but herself.
If you never pay attention to anything I say to you, please pay attention to this. When you make a mistake, say you are sorry, accept responsibility for your actions, make whatever amends you need to, and move on! When you refuse to acknowledge your mistakes, when you blame others for what you did, when you become defiant and unrepentant, a single mistake in the course of a given day can end up destroying your very life!!!
You see, satan wants to hold your mistakes over your head. When you refuse to acknowledge what you did was wrong, when you allow satan to help you find excuses for your mistakes you have played right into his hands. Instead of getting beyond your mistakes, your mistakes take on a life of their own and literally becomes an anchor around your neck. Rather than putting your mistakes behind you, your mistakes become part of your daily life.
I love you and care about you so much. As basic as this word is, it is an issue EVERYONE deals with because we all make mistakes in life every day. The more successful you are by the world’s standards, the more difficult saying “I was wrong” becomes. As people fall into the traps of pride and ego, the great justifier satan will always help you find an excuse for YOUR mistakes so that you can say you were right. My friend, that is a lie from the pits of hell itself. We all sin, we all make mistakes, and nobody is right all the time…..except Jesus!
I will be praying for you today. Praying that these words will find fertile resting place in your heart. Listen, it should be the goal of every follower of Jesus Christ to not sin, to live life perfectly. That MUST be our goal and why our daily time with the Lord in prayer and the Word is so critical. It helps us to stay connected to Christ and make Christ-like decisions during the course of the day.
But the reality is, only Jesus went through this journey without sin. As hard as we try, we will sin, we will make mistakes along the way. God knows this and gave us that great promise in 1 John 1:9 that tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
My word for you today is simply this. When you sin, when you make a mistake during the course of your day, don’t start trying to figure out an excuse for what you did, don’t try to cover it up. Instead, go to God and ask His forgiveness, admit your mistake to those you need to, make whatever amends might be necessary, and move on. We all sin, we all make mistakes, that is a fact. How we respond to our sins and mistakes is critical. There is only one correct response, “I was wrong!”
In His love and service,
Your friend and brother in Christ,
Bill Keller
About the Author
Bill Keller is the president of Bill Keller Ministries which owns Liveprayer.Com. Bill has his ministry credentials through an independent group of ministers, Spiritual Life Concepts in Largo, Florida, and is a member of a non-denominational church in Palm Harbor Florida. Bill has been married for 23 years to his wife Nan and the couple have no children.
