How often do you review your failures and sins? Is it a routine occurrence to remind yourself of how you blew it last time? Do you regularly allow yourself to fall into a spiral of dwelling on your failures?

For many women I know, this is a daily part of life. A few of my counselee’s who struggle with depression and anxiety begin their day by reminding themselves of how they are such dismal failures. Most are not quite that bad, but I do find that my counselee’s seem to want to clobber themselves with their shortcomings.

Does this surprise you? Did you think you were the only one? As long as there has been Satan, there has been accusation. This will not cease until Jesus returns to rule the earth. Revelation 12:10 speaks of the accuser of our brethren who accuses us before our God day and night. Therefore, we know we’ve a long way to go.

“And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.”

Revelation 12:10

Our self condemnation takes many forms, and our enemy really has only one purpose in it — and that is to discourage you to the point where you give up and cease to fulfill God’s purpose in your life.

Think of the running dialogue in your mind. How often do you hear yourself saying the following or something similar:

“I am such an idiot!”

“What a loser I am, I will never get this right.”

“How could I be so stupid?”

“I do the same sin over and over again, I am hopeless.”

“I am a failure as a Christian”

Those are some of my thoughts, and they seem to be the favorites. Satan loves to parade my failures and sin before me. He loves to remind me of the last time I chose to respond sinfully. He wants me to focus on my sin, failure, and unworthiness. He wants the same for you!

When we are busy tearing ourselves apart, we become completely ineffective in worship and service to Him. God’s purpose and plan for our lives is derailed. Until we get our thinking straightened out, we are sidelined with self-pity and remorse.

The way we handle those adverse thoughts is with the truth. Remind yourself of the great God you serve, whose purposes for you will be accomplished! Remind yourself that God knew your sins and failures long before time began and because of Christ, He loves you anyway-enough to die for you.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Romans 8:9-11

Keep the truth always at the forefront of your minds. He who keeps you will present you as blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.