Everybody loves it when their team wins. When you’re a real fan of a team and your team has the lead, you watch the game in peace and confidence and generally find yourself in a fairly good mood. But when the other team starts coming back, that mood begins to change, and that peace you felt now becomes tension. You find yourself no longer enjoying the comfort of confidence in having the lead! If by chance, your team loses that lead, then suddenly you are ill, frustrated, and fearful the worst is going to happen…you might get defeated!
How many times have you felt this scenario? I felt it just last week and the week before that, as I watched some of my favorite football teams lose sizable leads and ultimately lose the game. Not everyone is the same, but for me, I get ill, frustrated, and bummed out…I even get down and defeated! My wife asks me, “Why do you watch it if it's going to affect you like that?” 😳
Now the beauty of the sports scenario is that it's temporary! I mean, after all, it's just football! It's just a game! But how many times has that same scenario of defeat hit our lives spiritually? I know it has affected me. At times, I believed I was doing well spiritually. I felt strong and even confident, only to notice that my peace and confidence started slipping away and turned into discouragement and sometimes even into a feeling of full blown defeat.
I love reading the book of Psalms. The writer, David, often shares that same experience. David writes in Psalm 108:11, “God, why have you rejected us?” He wrote in other Psalms, “Where are you Lord,?” “Why am I downcast?” He knew what it was like to experience the feeling of defeat.
In Psalm 108, David prays, “Give us aid against the foe for human help is worthless. With God we will perform valiantly, he will trample our foes!” (vs.12-13) Our Enemy is the one who is defeated! He is not going to start coming back toward victory. The score has already been set. Jesus took care of that when He walked out of the tomb! There is no need to hang our heads in defeat, be bummed, or feel ill, frustrated, or fearful because Jesus is victorious and has given that victory to us!
We can live and walk and breathe in victory, not in defeat! Too many Christians live a life of defeat and do not live as conquerors, when actually we are MORE than conquerors through Jesus (Rom. 8:37). Sometimes we live as if we cannot win because we forget the truth. “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 Jn. 4:4). The truth is that you are in an ongoing spiritual battle. There will be some wins and some losses, but you need to always remind yourself of the truth that Victory IS Yours! Enjoy the win!