God Promises Your Victory
Do you live your life from the perspective of being victorious?
Verse of the Day
‘For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.’
Today’s Devotional
I love football. I grew up in a home where football was on the TV on Sundays, and we all hung out together in the TV room. Therefore, the sound of football makes me feel like I’m home. These days I am more of a college football fan than pro-ball. I also love College GameDay on Saturday mornings. Imagine, if you will, that every Saturday morning the guys on College GameDay told us which teams would win and lose later that day. They told us the scores and the outcomes for every game that was about to be played.
Doing this might diminish our excitement. And for an Aggie fan like myself, it would likely be pretty disappointing. But if we remove our excitement and anticipation of the games, it would radically change our perspective. Correct? While we are watching a game that day, we would no longer be concerned about an interception or fumble if we knew that our team was going to win.
In our spiritual journey, the outcomes have already been announced. But sometimes I seem to doubt that God has already declared my victory. Read today’s verse again. “For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.” The conditions for God’s promise of our victory are faith and belief. Faith in God. Belief that Jesus is the Son of God. If you have those two things, God has already declared your victory.
If this one verse isn’t enough, then let’s look at a few more.
“For the Lord your God is going with you! He will fight for you against your enemies, and he will give you victory!” (Deuteronomy 20:4)
“But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57)
“No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.” (Romans 8:37) “These things” include trouble, calamity, persecution, hunger, poverty, danger, being threatened, and death.
“But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.” (1 John 4:4) “Those people” includes anyone who does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus.
Spoiler Alert: You are going to win. You are on the winning team. Victory is yours according to God if you have faith and belief. We get in trouble when we decide what that victory should look like. Or when we get discouraged by our circumstances that are temporary and don’t affect the final outcome.
Back to my football analogy, what good would it do if a player on the Alabama football team made one bad play and then went to the sidelines and acted like the entire game was lost based on that one play?
Do we ever do the same thing in our lives? Do we let a current situation derail us from our destiny as victorious in Jesus?
It’s time we shift our perspective of today as just one more step closer to the victory that God has already declared over us. And again, we don’t get to decide what our victory looks like. Because we don’t have all the information yet. But we have to decide if we are going to take God at His Word. Do we trust Him enough to believe this promise? Are we willing to live today as a victor instead of as a victim? And are we willing to recognize that the victory we are promised is God’s victory, and has nothing to do with our individual comfort?
Being a person who walks through life with assured victory gives us the ability to tolerate the daily distractions and frustrations. It gives us a calm assurance. There is no sense of cockiness. Only a genuine desire to invite everyone to join the winning team. To work in unity toward a promised outcome, no matter our differences. To declare with our words and actions our love of God and our faith in Him. To display our belief in Jesus by continually becoming more like Him.
You are victorious. It’s time to live as a victor.
Journal Prompts
Answer only the questions that seem relevant to you today.
Do you live your life from the perspective of being victorious or being a victim? How?
How can you live today in a way that shows you believe God’s promised victory? What would that look like?
How can you grow your faith today?
How can you display your belief that Jesus is the Son of God?
How does your promised victory change your perspective of your day?