What Is Victory In Christ?
Good Morning Friends,
I think that I have given up on double predestination, for God desires for all to be saved and God has a way of winning when things seem impossible. That God should choose us is comforting but that God would intentionally choose to reject a person is abhorrent. Now some might question my logic here but, but I question the notion that logic should play a role in developing our understanding of election. What does logic have to do with Jesus overcoming death? What does logic have to do with the miracle of our existence? So really I am not going to bother even really addressing this for my focus this morning is about how God wins and shares the victory with us even when the world says we have lost. Whether we accept it is a whole other devotional. However, Paul in the writing of his letter to the Romans conveys a compelling argument of optimism. He encourages an attitude that we as believers in Christ should be more than conquerors in all things. In reading today’s scripture it brought me back to that story of Paul and Silas in prison in Philippi. Wrongfully accused, illegally incarcerated, having been stripped, had their backs whipped and torn and having been placed in stocks to maximize their suffering… they do something surprising and God does something amazing. Logic tells us that they would be sad and yet they are joyous. The story portrays an example of an answer to today’s question. What Is Victory In Christ?
Scripture: “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, ‘Don’t harm yourself! We are all here!’ The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
Acts 16:25-30 (NRSV)
We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8: 28-39 (NRSV)
He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:43 (NRSV)
Message: The story of the Roman jailer and the story of Paul and Silas is our story. It is a story of how we can face the issues of life and death, how and why Christ uses all things to bring us closer to Him, turning our sorrow into joy and interceding for us in an argument beyond logic. Now I believe that Jesus wants us to inherit the kingdom and so is ready to catch us when we fall, ready to hug us into eternity when we jump into His arms, ready to comfort us in the storm and ready to embrace us so close when we are tested that nothing, absolutely nothing, can get between us and His love. Friends, this divine love is so powerful, this love so pregnant that it births in us His Holy Spirit. This love can permeate our life, even the life of a penitent thief. And just as Jesus conquered creation and made it new in us, just as Jesus concurred death and sin, so too do we conquer with the Holy Spirit, laboring in the work He has given us until His return. Friends, Jesus lived and died placing His life in the hands of the Father. Like Jesus, we too need to choose life on the Father’s terms… being as a child looking up into the face of our Heavenly Father, learning the work He would have us do, putting our hands in His as we walk with Him into paradise…trusting God in those things which we cannot understand. Perhaps you have struggled with the thought that you could not possible be a child of God when you keep on failing in your fight against sin. Well today’s devotional and scripture may be just what you need to experience victory. Paul answers the question to the dilemma we find ourselves in when we try to overcome sin on our own. Today we learn the solution to life is on God’s terms- not our increased spirituality or attaining a certain level of godliness. No, here we learn that our fight with the flesh, our fight against death is won in the security of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit, when God dwells in us. And friends, the battle goes on until we die. Sure we start by listening, then practicing staying in step with God, then our thinking changes and our mind is renewed, and finally we begin living in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now get this, we are to walk in the victory He provided at the cross. We are to look beyond the fear, past the embarrassment and pride and through the uncertainties to find the peace and fulfillment of doing the best we can while still relying on grace.
Pray we believe that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit will bear witness that we are heirs of God. Pray we discover that hope can turn our eyes away from our pain to God’s glory. Pray we rejoice in the discovery that there is no such thing as a hopeless situation in Christ. Pray we realize that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are guided by faith to His purpose in life. Pray that in Christ we can be victorious in creative acts and victorious in redemptive acts and victorious in acts that sustain life. Pray we trust in the God of all creation, we trust in a Lord that lives and we trust in a love that lasts and trust in a purposeful labor. Pray in so doing we become more than conquerors.
Pray that we share in the victory of Jesus.
Pray that we realize that the conquest is complete in Christ.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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