John 6:37 – All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

THEME OF THE DAY. NO ONE IS DENIED. One sad reality of the Christian life is our many times of failing the Lord. We hate them. We get discouraged over them. We may even feel like raising the white flag of spiritual surrender and cry out in defeat, “What’s the use? I just cannot seem to live a consistent God-pleasing life. I might as well give up.” Yes, we fail in the Christian life. Sin, exploited by our flesh, the alluring world, and a crafty devil, still causes havoc in our spiritual lives. Praise God ultimate victory over all three spiritual foes has occurred. Heaven is assured, but on the journey there, we lose spiritual battles leading to discouragement, depression, and even despair. And when any or all three of these painful “d’s”, get a grip on our heart, the devil intensifies his attack on us. How so? He will attempt to get us to believe his lies about our Lord. He will whisper with persuasive force, “Look at you. Some Christian you are. What a poor and inconsistent follower of Christ. How can He possibly love someone who fails more than succeeds in obeying Him? Do you honestly think He will continue to forgive and restore you? And use you in his service? Are you kidding me? He cannot use such a spiritual failure like you.” Don’t underestimate the power of the devil. He does this in the lives of God’s saved, but sinning children. He also has caused many spiritual casualties among Christians. The spiritual battlefield is lined with wounded soldiers of Christ, out of the battle, defeated by the lies of Satan.

So how do we overcome him when his lies about our failing the Lord are actually true? True that we fail, but untrue of the picture he paints of the Lord Jesus? Today’s verse is a powerful piece of armor which always silences the lies of the devil when he makes an all-out attack upon us after we fail the Lord.

The context of our Lord’s Words is salvation. It is the wonderful truth that if we sincerely come in repentance and faith, our Lord Jesus states, “I will never cast them out” meaning, “no rejection, no denial, no refusal to be received by Him.” This is the glorious truth of salvation but don’t restrict it to salvation. In the process of living out the Christian life, and the failings in the Christian life, if we come to Jesus as we did at salvation for forgiveness and restoration, we get the same response from His loving heart – “I will never cast them out.” We have promise after promise of our Savior being a High Priest who not only prays for us in our failings, but restores us after our failings through confession and forgiveness. He will never reject a sinner coming to Him for salvation or a saint seeking Him for restoration. Why? Love. Divine love and during times of our failings and the devil’s accusations, the greatest display of Christ’s love for us in His being our Advocate; our Divine Lawyer pleading and always winning our case – “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). This truth is captured so well by the 18th century evangelist George Whitefield, “Since then Christ is praying for us, whom should we fear? And since He has promised to make us more than conquerors, of whom should we be afraid? No, though a host of demons are lined up against us, let us not be afraid. Even though Satan, and the rest of his apostate spirits, are powerful, when compared with us; yet, if put in competition with the Almighty, they are as weak as the smallest worms.

Yes, we fail the Lord, and we will all too often this side of heaven, but that doesn’t mean He rejects us. Just the opposite. His amazing grace will always reach and say to us as we return from our failings in confession and repentance, “And I will in no wise cast you out.” Rest in this unchanging truth in our ever-changing spiritual walk experience.

PRAYER: “Lord, I praise You for a love that never stops forgiving, restoring, and encouraging me.”

QUOTE: “No one who comes to Christ humbled, sincere, and seeking Him will ever be denied by Him”