So many are hoping this week that all the training, the discipline, the sacrifices made will produce the ULTIMATE WIN! For many, for most, there will be bitter disappointment in defeat.
Our lives can often feel like a series of defeats, disappointments; some are beyond our control but many though are of our own making. The Christian preacher Paul shared in these struggles and wrote about them in Romans chapter 5: 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do…24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
What a confession: ‘O wretched man that I am!’
And what was his answer to turn the tide, to give him VICTORY? 25 I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
It is only through Jesus Christ our Lord that true victory is gained over sin, the devil and death itself. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, that great resurrection chapter in the Bible, telling of Christ’s defeat of death at the cross, we read of true VICTORY:
50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in VICTORY.”
55 “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the VICTORY through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
There is only true VICTORY in our Lord Jesus Christ. Are you on the winning side?