Victory Is Forward, Not Reverse

If you take a log and throw it onto a fire, can you revert the log to its original state? Once something has been burned, it is forever changed. Its very chemical makeup has been altered and transformed into something else. It is a reaction that cannon be reversed. Now, that log can be consumed by fire, turned into ash, and used as nutrients for a field or forest, and it can be consumed as nutrients in another tree. But, the log can never go back to what it was.

In the same way, we will never be able to go back to a world that existed before the fall of man. There will be no returning to the Garden of Eden, it is a place that has been forever closed to us. We all have a strong urge in us to try and return things to the way they were. We try to revert relationship back to "the way things were" before a dramatic fight or betrayal. But the truth is, our life is not about moving backwards. Reconciliation is a powerful ministry because it allows us to move on from what we have done, and to learn from it. Experience might be a painful teacher, but we do not forget its difficult lesson.

Vern Sheridan says this about Christ's redemption of us, "Redemption reverses the effects of the Fall. But it does not merely return us to the pre-Fall situation with Adam. God planned from the beginning for development." This is what Christ's victory on the cross means for us in our hearts: there is now room for development.

Living Life

Choice and Victory

Our lives are full of choices. Our choices range from what we would like to eat for dinner to what we should do for the evening. We have choices in the television shows that we watch, what church to join, and which brand of clothing to buy. Sometimes our choices are easy, and sometimes our choices are practically made for us. For example, we have to choose to breathe or not to breathe - after all, while breathing is usually good, it's not a good idea for us to try that underwater. We know what choice to make based on the situation.

The same is true in our spiritual lives as well, especially when we are facing temptation. We are never forced to do anything, although varying circumstance will make us choose quickly. The devil can never force us to fall. We always, to some extent, allow the devil to push us over. Thomas Brooks writes, "When he tempts, we must assent; when he makes offers, we must hearken; when he commands, we must obey, or else all his labor and temptations will be frustrated, and the evil that he tempts us to shall be put down only to his account."

God makes it clear that He is in control of all situations, and that He is victorious over everything. That means whatever sin we commit when we are tempted, God forgives. But the power of choice is amazing; just as quickly as we fall, we can rise again. If we choose to fall, we also have the choice have victory; we just simply need to take it.

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Victory over ALL

We will be in job situations with bosses that we like and bosses that we do not. We may find out selves in various political jurisdictions with rulers we agree with and those we do not. But whether we support those over us or not, we need to realize that every power, ruler and authority on any level has been approved by Christ to be there.

Christ is triumphant. We need to drill this in our minds because once we get this, we can do mighty things. It is one thing to understand something in our head, and it is something else to understand something in our heart. If we really believe this, there is nothing that we should be afraid to hope in, and there is nothing that we should be afraid to ask for.

We stunt our own growth in Christ because we do not move our head knowledge to our heart knowledge. If we really accepted this, we would ask for more things from God. We would start to ask for bigger things from God. As John Piper says, there is one thing that we can be sure of: "He will accomplish all His purposes for the church and for the universe."

If you had a best friend who was famous, you would expect to have some benefits associated with that friendship. To say that all things are subject to Christ really means all things. So then ,what more is it going to take to move head knowledge to heart knowledge? How do we test where our knowledge is? By how we pray.

Living Life