Triumph

For every child of God defeats this evil world by trusting Christ to give the victory. --1 John 5:4

I rediscovered this verse this week when I looked it up for a Bible study I am doing. Even though I have read through the Bible several times, what I love about the Good Book is that verses can still hit me as if I have never seen them before at all. The words are alive and God can make them new again to me.

This world is evil. There are no doubts about that and America is no exception. Murder, violence, robbery, sex crimes, adultery, and general sin abound. We have even nicknamed a popular US city as "Sin City" and this moniker does not seem to deter business in that area. We are not afraid of sin anymore because we no longer have the reverence for God that people once widely held. Many of us actually knowingly embrace sin as our personal rebellion. People may not like to talk about it, but God sees our sin and it hurts His heart. It also hurts His heart to see His own children giving into the evil of the world in areas of their lives.

We are all fallen creatures living in a fallen world, but God has given His children the power to overcome the world through Christ. Victory is ours--our gift from God by His grace when we accept Him into our hearts--if we believe it and accept it. By our own power, we have no victory over the evil of the world. But God is stronger than sin, no matter how widespread sin is since God has also seen fit to give us free will to rebel if we choose. If we accept who we are in Christ, sin no longer has a hold on us and no longer has to rule in our lives.

Certainly a difficult feat to put into practice if we are not constantly focused on God and constantly in His word. Since sin is all around us, we would have to walk around with bags over our heads and ear plugs in our ears to avoid temptation altogether. God's goal, however, is not to keep us isolated from temptation, but rather to test and try us so that we become stronger spiritually and can resist the temptation in front of us through God's power working in us. We are to live in the world (as fallen as it is) but we are not to become like the world. And God has given us His spirit so that we can overcome the ways of the world through His grace.

I'll say it again: victory is already ours. Christ won it for us on the cross. But if we don't accept it, we cannot harness the power to overcome the evil that surrounds us. If we don't start living like the battle is already won (which it is, both now and in the long haul, see Revelations), we will either become frustrated and despairing at our inevitable failings or we will take the approach that the rest of the world takes--give up and sin because it's just easier that way. When we accept Christ and become His children, God sets us apart from the rest of the world even as we walk around in it. Let's start living as people set apart.

Posted by Kim at February 24, 2006 08:14 AM