Victory

Aaaahhh.  The after Christmas sigh of relief.  Time to take a deep breath and reconnect with the Lord, after a week of hustle and bustle and hurry and rush.  I so love this day.  It's the most peaceful day for me. (except for the fact that this goofy person made a dentist appt for the day??  Why did I ever do that???)   My wonderful heavenly Father rushed right into our time together with a new outlook for me to practice and learn and live.  It's not really new, just fresh and it needs to be applied to my life.....CONSISTENTLY.  That is the word of the year for me !!

I was in "31 Days of Praise" and the line was "How I praise You that I need not strive toward a possible victory, but can live from a position of victory already won..."  Sounds familiar, right?  Most of us have heard this before, right?  But I guess I needed a refresher on this concept.  What would it look like if I actually and consistently put this into practice?

In the Word I am told to renew my mind.  I don't know about you, but my mental sound track goes a lot like this:  "this is too hard", " I never get past this...", "why can't I ever seem to get this right?"....and so on.  Failure and defeat seem to play over and over.   But that is not the Lord's music.  If I let the Lord write the sound track for me it would go more like this:

1 John 4:4  You are of God, little children and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 

1 Corinthians 15:57  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  

Romans 8:37  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  

Conquerors.  In the Greek the word is hupernikao which means one who is super-victorious, over and above, achieving abundant victory.  Gotta love the Greek !!

1 Cor 15:57 says that God has given me victory.  In verse 58 I am told, "THEREFORE, be steadfast and immovable."

I am not to be moved off of, out of, or away from the place of victory given to me by God through Jesus.  when I stay in that place I will overcome, above and beyond and abound in His work accomplishing His goals and purposes for me.   Yet I continually let myself be moved into and live in a place or mindset of defeat. Instead of joyfully accepting God's gift of victory,  I all to easily accept Satan's "gift" of defeat.

This is not God's will for my life.  Nor is it His will for yours dear readers.  It's time to change that tune in our heads.  Change the channel, in fact I think we should put a block on that channel LOL.  Time to live in a place of victory.  It's ours anyway, why shouldn't we !!

What would our days look like if we lived knowing the victory was already given to us, secured by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?  Would there still be struggles and temptations?  Of course, we live in a fallen world, we have a bratty flesh that wants all the wrong things.  But the greater one who is in us told us in John 16:33: These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation; but be of  good cheer, I have overcome the world."  And so we can too.

The Lord wants me to live in consistency.  And that applies to this as well.  Lord, help me to remember my place in You.  The place of victory, overwhelming victory that You have given me.  Thank You.  As always, to You be the glory.

Ok, I am officially exhausted.  I hope your Christmas was as nice as mine.  I have the greatest family and I love them so very much.  May your New Year be filled with visits from the Lord.  Keep an eye out !!  He is always looking to come and sit and talk with us.  Keep an open door policy for Him.  Many blessings !!

Madeline