Now,
let me ask you a question that has an obvious answer. If you had a choice, which
is more appealing to experience, the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat? Okay,
what sensible person chooses the latter, right?
No
matter where we go in this world, there is an insatiable desire to compete not
only in anything sports but with others outside the domain of sports: titles, positions,
riches, power, talent, land, job, house, automobile, clothes, and so forth.
Keeping up with the Jones, or better yet, surpassing the Jones is nothing more
than another expression of materialism, “a desire for wealth and
material possessions with little interest in ethical or spiritual matters”
(WordWeb).
Jesus
warned about keeping up with the Jones and keeping up with Jesus (Lk 16:13).
Competition, depending on what it is, is healthy, but it has an evil side that appeals
to pride; there’s nothing like the thrill of being number one in whatever, yes?
These things we mentioned above are amoral; it only becomes evil for the
believer when those things in whole or part begin to compete for God’s will for
our time, attention, and money. Our allegiance begins to drift.
The
deeper we plummet into a Judges 21:25 mindset in our culture; there emerges
this prevailing opinion that we can have our cake and eat it, too, though Jesus
warned that we can’t (Mt 6:24). The demarcations become blurred between the
secular and the sacred to the point of conflating the two, and of course, there
is the ubiquitous, “How dare you to judge me” card, if called on it!
This
is a spiritually unhealthy competition that should never take place in the life
of any believer for it leads to idolatry; in other words, any person, place, or
thing that competes with the will of God for your life becomes an idol. I was
in conversation with a prosperity preacher not too long ago; he was declaring
to me in jest, “I got to keep up with the Jones,” to justify showing off his most
recent attainment, but I have discerned over time that he was truly a serious
player in the pursuit of things as proof to the promulgation of his prosperity
gospel doctrine.
I
really didn’t want to get confrontational in the context where I found myself,
but given this guy’s personality type, if I had said, “Shouldn’t you be keeping
up with Jesus instead since you are a shepherd of a flock?” He would have
thought that I was either being self-righteous or envious or both. Given his
nature, he would have replied, “I can do both!” and laughed it off.
We
never talk Bible, only about his new acquisitions or accomplishments. I
mentioned a passage from Scripture once, and he ignored the allusion. Our very
brief talks in passing are substantially one-dimensional. This is one who is
self-referential.
My
friends, the deception is promoting the idea that you can have your cake and
eat it, too, as a believer. To be fair, that is possible for those rare
believers who can handle such responsibility, but for most of us, it is not.
Thinking outside the box of either/or is neither revolutionary nor liberating.
Rather, it is a doctrine that is rebellious and enslaving, providing a false
sense of spirituality because of what you possess.
I
suppose, according to that way of thinking, even rich mafia types should be
going to heaven as well. Being in pain and/or poor is not a sin (cf. Mk 12:41-44;
2 Cor 12:7-10; 1 Tim 5:23). Thinking one is “blessed” or right with God because
they have things is a spiritual error, a sure-fire recipe for the agony of spiritual
defeat.
We all can
relate to the thrill we have in knowing and doing God’s will, and we know what
it is like when we fail to do God’s will in a matter. It is unnecessary to
rehearse these things with you, only to remind you that knowing and doing God’s
will has an everlasting feel to it whereas knowing and not doing God’s will has
a neverlasting feel to it. It is the domain of the eternal versus temporal. We
suffer the loss of those things we could have gained had we remained faithful to
God. Let’s shift gears.
There
is a church I have passed countless times over the past several years that has
a vowel missing in the spelling of its name: Victory Drive. The letter “I” is
missing in “V ctory.” After three years of driving by this little church, I had a change of perspective; my brain was supplying the “I,” in V ctory to where I was reading Victory
into V ctory. It is akin to reading the 1587 Geneva Bible. The fixing of their sign was irrelevant to me.
Apparently, the
attendees decided not to replace the missing letter, perhaps their mind
was also supplying the “I” for free, as it did me. Given the church’s small
size, it may have been a financial constraint, and it became a thing that they
could live without, and decided not to fix it.
Do
you know what the letter “I” is going for these days in an I-driven culture?
There is a very high premium placed on the letter “I.” It was on the last
Wednesday of October of last year, as I was driving by this church, that the Holy
Spirit pointed something out to me that was so obvious that I am sort of embarrassed
to admit it to you: “V ctory.” Do you see it?
There is no spiritual victory
if “I” is in it, only defeat! It is the
height of arrogance and ignorance to believe that we can live victoriously for
Jesus Christ through our own effort or strength. We know this; we experienced
it, and some of you may still be trying to figure out why there is no thrill or
joy in Jesus because you are attempting to produce an outcome by the flesh rather
than by the Holy Spirit.
I hope this little church on Victory Drive never finds an “I,” because every time I pass by it, it serves as sort of a Jewish phylactery
to remind me of that spiritual truth. It is a sweet reminder. There is no thrill
of spiritual victory as long as “I” has anything to do with it.
Now,
I am not suggesting that spiritual victory is automatic, or that we can remain
passive to achieve victory in living for Yahweh. We still have to live by faith
and be faithful to live out the principles of Scripture in the daily routine of
life. We still have to don our spiritual armor for battle every single day (Eph
6:13-17). Faith must be active (Jas 2:18, 20).
Even
those attempting to live holy lives apart from the Holy Spirit is nothing more
than a DIY (do it yourself) fleshy attitude that will result in suffering the
agony of spiritual defeat. Nowhere do the Scriptures teach that God helps those
who help themselves (cf. Jn 15:5; Php 4:13). Paul spells it out very plainly
how to achieve the thrill of spiritual victory for the believer,
Walk
(a
lifestyle)
in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Gal 5:16) ... If we live in the
Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:25).
Being
in the flesh as a believer is where the agony of spiritual defeat is guaranteed.
Read this list of agony producers that is in contrast to the thrill of the fruit
of the Spirit in our lives (Gal 5:22-23):
(Gal
5:19) Now
the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication,
uncleanness, lewdness,
(Gal
5:20) idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath,
selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
(Gal
5:21) envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you
beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who
practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Should
we decide to walk in the flesh, we shall fulfill the lust of the flesh and
suffer the agony of spiritual defeat. We are free to make a choice, but we are
not free from the consequences of that choice.
Whenever
this personal pronoun “I” is allowed to become the center of our universe, we
have created a monolith to ourselves for self-glory, self-adoration, and
self-adulation. We are guilty of idolatry because we have put ourselves before
God (Ex 20:3-5). At this juncture, we are at a spiritual apogee in our lives from
God’s will as a believer; this is being in the sphere of the agony of defeat. When we
are under self-control in this context it is evil and is nothing more than an antonym
for Spirit-controlled (Eph 5:18, the spiritual perigee, the thrill of victory
sphere).
We
know that the Spirit and the flesh are contrary one to another (Gal 5:17), and
we have to make a faith choice. Walking in the Spirit produces the thrill of
spiritual victory. Walking in the flesh results in suffering the agony of
spiritual defeat.
… Not by
might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of hosts (Zech 4:6).
I
got a question for you that may explain what is currently going on with your
life. Which do you prefer to experience, the thrill of spiritual victory or the
agony of spiritual defeat? Is the “I” at the center of your lifestyle or out of
the picture altogether? The thrill of V ctory is for those who have lost the “I” and placed their faith in Yahweh. <><
You
are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you
is greater than he who is in the world (1 Jn 4:4).
For
whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has
overcome the world—our faith (1 Jn 5:4).
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