SWORDS Bible Study: Part 3 Victorious Living in The Battle

By Mari  (All caps for emphasis only)

This is part 3 of our study of Victorious Living.  We learned the crux of the matter in part 2 is that we are no longer our own. We are a new creature in Christ, members of the body of Christ, we are not our own. We are to walk forward in Christ to be victorious!

Untaught, uninstructed babes in Christ indulge in the worldly searching of themselves in the false hope of finding and making themselves more suitable, to somehow be more suitable to God.  This is done rather than searching the things of God to find who they are in Christ and mature in Him.

We are not to spend our life trying to make sense of ourselves and our lives, but to go forward in Christ, with each day a new day in Him!  We die to ourselves, having been crucified with Christ the moment we first believed! We CANNOT SPIRITUALLY mature in our fleshly selves…only in Christ, only in the Spirit.  We cannot change the past, nor make sense of the things that happened in the past.  The past is completely dead and gone to us! Totally, dead and gone.

Gone are the mistakes, the pain, the hurt that was imposed on us by others, the hurt we imposed on ourselves or others…the good, the bad and the ugly have disappeared as if the person we were yesterday, is dead.  And in point of FACT, if you are in Christ, that person IS dead! And, we are to keep that person dead and buried! That person is our Old Man, our old nature! We cannot clean up our mistakes, or the mistakes of others.  We CANNOT change nor fix the past.

We are to live forgetting those things which are behind (Phil 3:13), but that does not mean that the negative consequences of those mistakes and harm are gone. From the believer’s perspective, those are not things we are to dwell on, but they are things we may need to deal with. One example: If you do or say something that harms someone else today, then it is incumbent upon you to at least apologize if not go out of your way to make things right tomorrow, if that’s even possible.

The POINT is that from God’s perspective you are FREE to live this day forward without those things hindering you from pressing on towards the mark of the high calling which is in Christ Jesus despite our past.  Even if someone is in prison for the next 20 years, this should not hinder one from how they press on NOW.

Our focus is to be on Christ today.  Our focus should be on going forward in Him.  The only way we can be victorious in the midst of this battle is to KNOW and BELIEVE we are in Christ, as a member of the body of Christ the church. We are in His service until He takes us home!  Any other endeavor is fruitless.

Rom 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

We understand that we are no longer in Adam, but in Christ.  We are no longer a sinner, because in Christ we are a sanctified saint. We are no longer a Jew or Gentile, but an ambassador for Christ.  We are a new creature IN Christ.

2Co 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. 

The presentation of our bodies to God is now our reasonable service to Him, who died for us that we may have eternal life in Him!  Our mind and our emotions also belong to Him.  Do you know what happens to our mind, body and heart when we DO what God has given us to do with them?

Php 4:9 Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.

Today God’s people expect, because of mixed up law and grace teaching, to be handed the victory over all of life’s problems while living here on earth.  They think that somehow, perhaps because they are saved, that they should have a daily victory in living out the details of their lives, the kind of victory that THEY want.

These people believe that God will tell them where to live, which house to buy or build, what job they should have, even down to what car they should drive, or when they should get a new one! Many believers agonize about where they should serve God, what country for missions, yet, God does not operate this way today. He leaves these choices to us, based on our judgment of what will be good for us and our ministry.

We pray for all the wrong things, expect answers that WE want to our prayers, and live in defeat, without ever understanding why.

God hears our prayers and wants us to pray without ceasing, however He has explicitly given His will for each of His own in the word of God clearly! His will is not for us to have a Ferrari, however His will is also not that we cannot have a Ferrari!  It is our choice and responsibility to make these sorts of decisions, based on our finances as much as on our desires, and as long as we are not out of line with the will of God revealed in Scripture, our choices are our own in these matters.

Knowing, of course, that we will give an account to God of those things done in the body… (2 Cor 5:10)

God does not see our worth by where we live, what we drive, whether we have a college education or are the president of a company!  He sees our worth in Christ alone! God is not our sugar daddy in this dispensation, there to bless us in or with all physical things!  He has already given us ALL spiritual blessings in this dispensation of grace (Eph. 1:3, 3:2). Do you think this is nothing? It is everything! ALL SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS!

Victorious living in Christ has nothing to do with trying to find some mysterious will of God, outside of His will that has been revealed to us, for today, in Scripture!

Victorious living is found in living our lives in Him, based on His Word RIGHTLY DIVIDED.

Victorious living is found in taking up our armor and engaging in the battle as soldiers and ambassadors for Christ.  You cannot win a victory IN THIS LIFE if you are not fighting a battle!

We may enjoy the fruits of our labor, our spouses, children, grandchildren, food, homes, vehicles, vacation homes, and retirement, whatever.

However, if one is enjoying without thanksgiving to God, and without doing the work of God that He set out for us, praying always, washing ourselves daily in the word of God, nothing will EVER truly satisfy us, not even as believers, because we will be out of His will.  There will always be a feeling of lack even in the middle of seemingly having everything!  Sometimes the more one has, that feeling of lack is amplified unless God is the CENTER of your life.

When God is the center of your life, and you are walking in His will, there is peace, no matter the circumstances.

Victorious living is not about having everything fun and comfortable in the world…it is knowing the peace of Christ in the midst of the battle.

Victorious is being at peace in Him while the whole world seems foreign and falling apart.

Victory is through Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ was victorious over death.  When we live in His will for us in understanding, we begin to thank God, because He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

1Co_15:57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Gospel of the Grace of God: 1Co 15:1-4 I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you…By which also ye are saved…How that Christ died for our sins…And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: