If you let one mistake keep you down, you’ll miss out on God’s plan for your life. If you’ve made a mistake, ask for forgiveness, make amends, and then pick yourself up and get right back to work. Often God can use our mistakes to teach us something important for the future. Often it’s the mistake that He will use to help us reach our world.

I remember one of my big mistakes.  We were missionaries in Mexico City with a missionary society.  We organized a city-wide stadium campaign, another missionary and I, and we borrowed the money from three Michigan churches. And borrowing was against the missionary society’s rules. Then the government cancelled the festival and we lost all the money.  We didn’t know how to pay it back.  Never again will I borrow money for an evangelistic campaign.  That was a big lesson.

You have never messed up too much, or gone too far. Don’t be discouraged. We are told in the book of Proverbs, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”

Remember there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ - so it’s time to pick yourself up and get back to reaching your world, forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 

This is Luis Palau.