As I was reading and meditating on the Word a few days ago, I felt that God was telling me something: basically that I have no excuse to not live victoriously. You see, God's equipped us as New Testament believers to deal with anything that comes against us. Jesus said in Matthew 16 v 18 that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. We have the armour of God, we have the name of Jesus to use when we pray, we have the body of Christ to stand with us, we have the mind of Christ, we have the Holy Spirit.....so many promises in the Bible of victory. Victory that has already been won FOR us. We just need to stand, believe, use our faith and keep our eyes on Jesus.
The words of Jesus to cherish and meditate on are at our fingertips. We have dozens of translations of the Bible to help us understand the text better. We have concordances, and we now easily have Bibles wherever we are, at the touch of a button on smart phones and tablets. The old testament prophets would have been floating around with joy at all the things we have at our disposal to live victoriously. I'm willing to bet that they would run rings around the modern day believer if they were here now. We have no excuse to not live victoriously.
Yes, we are at war. Paul warns us that we "wrestle not with flesh and blood" (Eph 6 v 12) and that the "weapons of our warfare are not carnal" (2 Cor 10 v 4); so we know we are in a battle. We know we will face trials and persecutions and general troubles in the world. But we are told by Jesus in John 16 v 33 that "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Jesus has overcome! He tells us to be of good cheer. Are we being of good cheer when we face tribulations? Although we are in a war, God doesn't leave us defenceless. We have weapons as we saw from 2 Cor 10 "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal". We have a full armour (Eph 6) and God supplies it! Each day we should be able to walk in victory.
We don't have any excuse to be defeated. Unlike the men and women of the old testament, we have everything we need to live a life of victory right within us. I like the story of Elijah from 1 Kings. He has an epic and triumphant day. He makes an absolute mockery of the false gods and prophets of baal. He has it all going on - God performs a stonking miracle and Elijah and God are like the dream team.
Then a woman threatens him and he goes to pot! He runs away, and falls apart. He sits under a tree and asks to die! God has to send an angel to give him a bit of food as he's completely lost it. How can you go from rocking and rolling in miracles and triumph, to running away and wanting to die later that same day? Yet sometimes we're a bit like that, and this is why I can totally relate to Elijah and I like that God put this in the Bible. Sometimes, even though we've had it all going on for God, we step out of victory and we get defeated.
Now I may not experience it on quite an extreme level as Elijah; I haven't mocked people by suggesting their idols must be "on the loo" because they're not answering them (although I've paraphrased that, it is what Elijah says basically. Cracking line, and yet another reason I relate to Elijah, He's got a great sense of humour and he's a bit cheeky!), and I don't get death threats, thank goodness. But I do have days where I start the day in good spirits, thanking God for the wonderful day he's made, and by tea time I can be falling apart. I've let every little thing get to me,got angry at the bully on the road who cut me up; had people be rude to me and I've lost my joy, and my patience is a distant dot on the horizon it's so far away from me. And I can bet I'm not alone.
We all have those days, be honest. We've been defeated by the bills that keep piling in - or it could be the area of health, relationships, bad habits, or it could be a sin we've fallen into or a sin we've never dealt with. Whatever it is, we haven't used the armour of God, we haven't walked in the victory that the Bible tells us we have. When he took his eyes off God, Elijah didn't have the Holy Spirit indwelling reminding him that he is more than a conqueror, or that God's grace is sufficient for him. We do. We have God's grace and His promise that He never leaves us or forsakes us, and that when we do slip up, and we will occasionally, we have Jesus at the right hand of God, ever interceding for us. When we take our eyes off God and we put them on our situation, then we are in danger of losing the victory. There's only one place that victory is found, and that's in Jesus, and that's why we must be continually connected to Him.
I've barely scratched the surface with the promises that are ours in Christ. To lay hold of them, we need to know what they are, so we need to be reading the Bible to find out. Find out what God says about you; find out what He wants for your life. We need to be implementing all of God's promises in our lives, so we need to be speaking the Word, declaring His victory in our lives. We need to use our faith at all times, speaking faith-filled words into our circumstances; and we need to be thanking God for what He has done for us, and we do that through worship and the outpouring of His goodness and love in our daily lives.
When we stand before Him and He asks us what we did with our lives, there won't be an excuse for being defeated. He's purchased our freedom and redemption at the Cross. By His stripes, we are healed. He is our provider and His grace is sufficient for us. He's given to us HIS faith (Rom 12 v 3) and He's told us that we are more than conquerors (Rom 8 v37) and that nothing can separate us from His love.
It's time for the Body of Christ to rise into the victory that God calls us to live!
Be blessed
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