From victory, not for victory!

Admittedly this is not a saying I came up with.  It is actually a saying a friend of my wife's said to her.  BUT, it’s too good to not blog about it and I asked my wife first, so… there.

Here’s what she told my wife (and it’s something I wish more Christians understood)…

“As Christians, we need to know that we fight from victory, not for victory.”

Stinking WOW!  Do you get that?  As we fight the forces which come against us (the enemy, the world, our flesh), we already stand on victory.  We fight from a place already secured by victory.  We’re not fighting to achieve victory, because it’s already been won!

1 Corinthians 15:57 tells us,

“But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It doesn't say " He’s GOING to give us victory", it says "He GIVES us victory over sin"!  It drives me to the edge of insanity when I hear Christians say stuff like, “It’s our nature, we’re always going to sin.” Or “I’ll never have victory over this.  I’ll always struggle with it.”  That’s CRAP!  While it is true it’s in our nature to sin and there will be areas of our life more difficult to overcome than others, we already have victory over sin.  Which means, many time (and I would say most) we are able to chose whether we sin or not.  Now, there are sins considered “sins of ignorance” or “unknown sin” (See Psalm 19:12, Leviticus 4:2 & Leviticus 5:17).  In those cases we seek God for forgiveness the way David did in Psalm 19:12.  There are even those moments of uncontrolled frustration where your sin nature grabs a hold of us and we slip (maybe you curse or say something you don’t mean), and I’m not even talking about those sins.  Although, as Jesus transforms you the fruit of The Spirit should be more prevalent and those uncontrolled outbursts should be less and less (it’s called sanctification).

I’m talking about those blatant and willful sins, we typically label with the belittling and obscure excuse “I fell”.  That’s ridiculous.  I’m talking about the sins requiring a conscious act of disobedience and a willful decision to participate in.  Things like sexual immorality, drunkenness, gossip and the like (this is not an all inclusive list, mind you).  These are sins we don’t “accidently” fall into.  These are sins which at some point in our approaching them, we decide, “I’m going to do this.”

Let me say this, I’m not calling anyone out without realizing the plank in my eye.  I know, without a doubt, there are things Christ is still perfecting in me.  Things He aims to destroy for the sake of my holiness.  And I’m fully aware there is a process Christ takes us through to weed out and get rid of the things which draw us away and keep us from Him.  The process is difficult, no doubt, and often a struggle, and I don’t mean to take away from the work we put into it or the work Christ does in us to overcome those struggles.  But we need to realize the truth that we’re not fighting FOR victory, it’s already been won!  We are not slaves to sin anymore (Romans 6:18) and it’s time we realize that and start acting as slaves to righteousness (right living).  That’s what we’re bound to… the righteousness of Christ.  There are so many times WE get to chose if we sin or not.  In the instances when it becomes difficult to resist, we rely on Christ being strong in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).  Coincidentally, that is part of why He calls us into fellowship with other believers... accountability.  The truth is, when we act like victory hasn’t been achieved, we disregard the work of Christ on the cross.  He won it for us, so we don’t need to.

Rest in His victory. Fight from His victory.

Victorious,

Bruce

I can do it MYSELF!

I think there are a lot of times that we believe, although I'm not sure how we logic it out in our brains, that we can control sin.  Maybe we don't call it sin in our heads, which is another blog and issue all together, but I'm talking about whatever that temptation we face that we believe is easily controlled if "only we have enough self-control." But whatever we call it, let's be honest and call it sin.  We get this idea that we can control sin and that we don't need God to resist it. 

I've been reading out of the book of Judges right now for my quiet time and noticed that this has been the take on sin for quite sometime.  When God gave the promise land to the Israelites He commanded them to drive the people living there out of the land (many were to be destroyed), to not make covenants with them and to destroy their alters.  However, we see (starting in Judges 1:19-36) the people Israel fail to drive the Canaanites out of the land and instead take them as slaves.  

Judges 1:28 says, "When the Israelites grew stronger, they forced the Canaanites to work as slaves, but they never did drive them completely out of the land." (emphasis added)

The truth of the matter is, when the Israelites grew strong enough that they felt they could run things themselves (pride), they made the decision to take the Canaanites as slaves (because they believed they could control them) and ignored the command of God.

So what then were the consequences of this disobedience?  Judges 2:1-3 say, "¹ The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said to the Israelites, “I brought you out of Egypt into this land that I swore to give your ancestors, and I said I would never break my covenant with you. ² For your part, you were not to make any covenants with the people living in this land; instead, you were to destroy their altars. But you disobeyed my command. Why did you do this? ³ So now I declare that I will no longer drive out the people living in your land. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a constant temptation to you.”

Verse 3 tells us that the Canaanites would be a thorn in the Israelite's sides and their gods a constant temptation to them.  Essentially, the Canaanites would be a constant problem for the Isrealites and their way of life would be a continuous temptation, ever drawing them away from God.  

They chose to disobey God because they believed they were capable of controlling the source of temptation, without God.  Eventually this decision will lead to Israels downfall (on more than one occasion).

They were so pompous, so prideful, so disobedient and we think (somehow) we're different.  We've been making that same decision ever since.  How many times do we know (with certainty) that God is trying to remove a source of sin from our lives and we either completely resist him on it, until it consumes us or so ruins things that we have no choice to surrender it to Him.  Or we achieve some victory (whether it be large or small, many or few) in it and we assume that it was our own doing and we allow bits of it to stay, because "we have the self-control" to resist it.  Truth be told, we don't have the power (apart from God) to resist temptation or beat sin by ourselves.

When God wants to take something completely out of your life, the only option is COMPLETELY.