I was thinking of all of you as I was holding Courageous Conversations at the last Medical Conference in Nashville. I was wondering how many of you have been sifted by the trials of daily life such as the couples I was talking to in Nashville have been. I am going to write you a rather long letter that will be a refresher on how to get back on course after a failure. We developed Noble Plans at the Noble Partners conference and raised our expectations only to go home and experience failure. We move back into our old NORMAL ways and forget about being NOBLE men and women who make NOBLE PLANS and carry out NOBLE DEEDS because we feel like change is impossible. Well here is a map to course correct to in the coming days. You may have gotten so far off the ancient path that you can no longer see the Noble Call or Noble Plans of God. Let me help you SEE again clearly the Noble Call of God on our lives. We cannot act differently until we SEE differently, from God’s perspective.

I was thinking that after our great victory in Dallas that the enemy of our souls, the weakness of our flesh and the pull of the world would all come back at a more opportune time and we had better be ready to STAND. There will be a battle to fall back into the old patterns and to defend the weaknesses of our flesh, thereby giving our enemy the opportunity to overcome you in your flesh. Remember the keys to walking in the Spirit are humility and confession. We don’t defend our flesh or put any confidence in it as Paul states in Philippians 3. Read this chapter, Paul says he gave up all confidence in the flesh and accepted the righteousness of Christ and he is secure and significant as an heir of God and promoted to sonship. Satan will try to pull you back into the flesh, to see from your own “good and evil” perspective. He will tempt you to look to yourself instead of unto God. Remember that every test is from God’s hand; don’t forget the sovereignty of God. He is all-wise, so everything that comes will be the wisest thing that could happen. He is all loving, so Satan will try to convince you otherwise. Hudson Taylor went through amazing trials but He found the secret to be accepting each trial from the hand of an all wise, all loving and all-powerful God. You will in some way fail this test but the key is how you will recover in Christ. Don’t worry about the failures, they come, we choose if we will fail backwards or forwards by our response to the failures.

Fail forward by getting back into the mindset of:

1. Come, Call and Clothe. God will come into your life to save you from this failure. He will want to reaffirm your righteousness in Christ. Satan will be accusing you and trying to get you to defend your flesh by taking you to Mount Sinai where the law was given. Your heavenly Father will be bringing you to Mount Calvary where mercy and truth met and made a way for us to be made blameless and holy through confession. Humble yourself and allow God to call you unto Himself as Jesus did to the disciples when they failed time and time again. Remember Peter, Jesus called him back out of his safe zone of fishing after he failed and back into the new life the Noble Calling of feeding his sheep. Jesus warned Peter in Luke 22:31 And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired [to have] you, that he may sift [you] as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Jesus let Peter fail because He wanted Peter to come to the same place Paul had to come to. To put no confidence in the flesh. You to will be tested, because God wants you to be firmly convinced of this very fact so all the glory and power will go unto God. You will want to be depressed because you feel like you failed again; this will be a sign of pride. Repent quickly of this and claim the righteousness of God and humble yourself to those you feel like you failed. The failure will look like this:

2. COME, SEE, CONQUER and then withdraw. This is the most common trap of the enemy, the flesh and the world. We try to overcome in the power of the flesh only to hurt others and ourselves. When this happens, go back to God; find your security in His love, your significance and honor in being His son, His heir. There is no higher position we will ever attain to than being a child of the King of Kings. This offends our pride but brings security and significance to our Spirit like nothing else can. All other ground is sifting sand. When you feel secure in Christ and significant in the position He has put you in as a Noble Man in Christ Jesus then you can practice Noble Leadership.

3. COME, CALL, CLOTHE

COME into the presence of those who hurt you or whom you hurt. See Matthew 5:23 and Matthew 18. Go to your brother if you have hurt him or if he has hurt you.

CALL – call them unto yourself in a safe way. Having removed your hurts and bitterness, your fears of rejection and failure. Willingly offer them the security and significance of God’s love that you received from your heavenly Father.

CLOTHE – them with UNDERSTANDING. Ask them the seven courageous questions and see their most pressing issue from their perspective. Don’t process their words from your own set of thoughts, experiences, fears of rejection or failure. Simply try to see it as they do, don’t defend your flesh, your goal is to see life differently from a new perspective. Wisdom is seeing life from God’s perspective; one form of Understanding is to see life from the perspective of those who mean the most to you. The Noble Man who understands the heart is the one who wins the heart. Ask those you have failed:

1. What is the most pressing issue on your heart, how have I hurt you most? (Remember, put no confidence in your flesh, you are blameless and holy in Christ Jesus not in your flesh. Take sides against your flesh and humble it. Satan will lose his victory when you die to the flesh. This is exactly what Jesus modeled for us and yet He was innocent. Do not save yourself during this question. Simply say, “This is what I hear you saying…” Then let them correct you if you didn’t really get it right. Keep going until they say, “Yes I think you understand me”

2. Next question is “How is this affecting you?” (This will hurt a little, okay A LOT, but this is where you really begin to see differently. You won’t act differently until you see differently. This is not about looking “good” in your children’s or wife??s eyes but about seeing good. Seeing from God’s perspective and from others perspectives. You cannot change unless you are aware of the blind spots and the hurts our flesh causes. When you see from another’s perspective you see differently and it makes you aware and you will change when you see it. Allow this process to work in your heart; God uses understanding to work in you to will and to do His good pleasure. Simply answer, “This is what I hear you saying…” let them course correct you until you hit the bull’s eye of understanding. You will be giving their soul the fresh air of God’s love as you do this.

3. Next question “If nothing changes what will the future look like?” I know this question seems tough to ask but it will really motivate you to move towards a willingness to receive God’s grace. We resisted God’s grace when we failed and now we need to move back into being willing to be made willing to receive God’s grace. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

4. “What do you see my responsibility to be for this issue?” You may think you know the answer but you must ask this question. Remember, do not defend, explain, complain or blame. Take full responsibility and simply say, “This is what I hear you saying…”

5. “What do you see your responsibility to be for this issue?”

6. “What would be the preferable future in solving this issue and in overcoming this issue the next time it comes up?” This is a great question to let the Spirit of God come into your fellowship. Matthew 18 God says “Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” Jesus is affirming us to realize, we will fail but when we COME, CALL, & CLOTHE, He will be there with us, and He will support our efforts and our prayers of agreement. This is how you will get back to intimacy. We lose our intimacy because we have a conflict when we feel our security or significance is threatened. We sense someone has gone from giving to taking and then we go into criticizing or defending and finally into withdraw. We cannot bypass the conflict to get back into intimacy so we have to go back into it unarmed and humble. We resolve the issues through courageous conversations and restore intimacy. Don’t let Satan hold you back from this; he seeks to isolate you because he knows he can pick you off when you are separated from the flock. Families that stay together can put 10,000 or more to flight. Psalm 133 says God commands a blessing when brethren dwell together in unity. We have no other alternative than to be Noble Men who lead courageously by COMING, CALLING and CLOTHING others in God’s mercy and love.

7. Last question would be "What do you see the next step we could take that would be the wisest thing we could do based on past experience? current circumstances? and our hopes of the preferable future?

Then if they want to ask you these same questions you can come into a whole new level of understanding. Remember it is MERCY AND TRUTH.

Let me know how you are doing and when the test and trials come. Count them all joy my brethren, God is moving us away from confidence in our flesh to confidence, faith and trust in our only source of true righteousness. Do not be disappointed in the weaknesses of your own flesh; it is a sign of pride. Humble yourself quickly and agree with your adversary so you can go on to Mount Calvary and find the source of living waters, cleansing waters. All things are being summed up into Christ Jesus, nothing of your flesh will remain, it is corruptible but we are sowing to the Spirit that which is incorruptible, our Noble Identity in Christ.

Posted by Chris Hogan on Thursday, March 17, 2005 at 19:29 PM