As we were getting the kids ready for bed Sunday night, I turned on the tv and watched some of the Olympics closing ceremonies. The memory tower, the fireworks, music, lighted acrobats hanging hundreds of feet in the air--my eyes could barely take it all in. It was an amazing show. But the last ten minutes of the broadcast is what got to me. NBC showed a montage of the last two weeks of the winning moments for the athletes. I sat there mesmerized as I watched a wrestler cry over his win, the smiles beaming from the womens gymnastic team, a jouster collapse on the floor in an exhaustive win, Michael Phelps raise his fist in triumph, a big burly weightlifter show his medal around his neck and hold a picture of his son next to the gold---the list goes on and on. I had tears in my eyes watching these moments, many I hadn't seen on tv. I thought about the massive undertaking many of them had taken just to get to Beijing and how they must've felt knowing they gave it all they had and won. And from that moment on, they walked and acted like champions!
The Bible says that we can have victory, too. In Romans 8:35 Paul writes, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." 2 Samuel 8:6 says David "had victory wherever he went".
So can Christians ever lose in life? We cannot balance physical reality with spiritual reality. On the cross, it looked like Jesus was overcome. In reality, he was the overcomer! Jesus taught his disciples that they would have to lose their lives to really live, that they could only be great by becoming slaves and that the way to be exalted is to be humbled. Such ideas seem to be contradictions because we see things from the physical realm. But the fact is that even in defeat, in Christ we win.
Seeing as we have victory in Christ, act like it! Walk with your head lifted high; speak like someone who knows they've got the victory. A duck walks, talks and quacks like a duck because it is a duck! A duck can't be anything else because he is a duck! It's time we walk as though we know we have already won....because we have!
3 comments:
God has definitely been showing me this same thing the last few weeks. I am seeing things completely different than I have seen them before. Our SS teacher at Crossgates was talking about this some weeks ago and then I picked up a book at the library that says the SAME things he was saying in class to us. Think God is trying to tell me something? I think so. Then, I come on here and you are saying the same things the teacher said and the book said. WOW! I keep going to these verses and I feel I have been walking my walk with Christ all wrong. Well, not wrong, but not in the authority He has given to me. The same power that rose Christ from the dead is in ME! But, why do I not live that way? Why do I look at how hard my circumstances are instead of seeing that the victory has already been won? Here are some sayings from the book I am currently reading.
"I WAS a sinner, but I have been saved by grace. I am now a saint who sins."
"Faith is ACTING like God tells the truth. It is one thing to say we believe God tells the truth, but it is quite another to act like it."
There is so much more, but I don't want to take all of your comment space up. I hear you, Barbie, and thank you so much for this post.
Quotes are from: The Ultimate Makeover - becoming spiritually beautiful in Christ by Sharon Jaynes
Your blog never fails to encourage and inspire me! Thank you for your faithfulness!
You are so right! Even in earthly defeat, we are encouraged by the reward of eternal life. Though a gold medal may never grace my neck, the streets of gold one glorius day I will walk! Let us all walk with our head up high, even in the face of adversity, because in Christ we have won.
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