Victory Is A Man
by Chip Brogden
Everyone who looks does not see. Everyone who hears does not listen. What are we looking for? What is it that we need to see? What would God reveal to us? There is but one desire of God for us, and that is that we may see Christ. God does not reveal one hundred, one thousand, or one million things to us. He is pleased to give us His Son, and He delights for us to look only to Him. Not even the things He gives, but to Him who is the Gift. We may pray for revelation into a great many matters, but only one thing is important to God, that is, that we may have revelation into the Son.
If we know the Son, if we possess the Son, if we see the Son, we know and possess and see all that God has and is, for He has deposited all of Himself into His Son, and all of His Son He deposited into us.
As we progress we begin to ask for and seek spiritual "things" in order to have a victorious Christian life. We learn to do this from watching what everyone else is doing. We seek many blessings from God. We pray many prayers and make many requests. Sometimes it seems we are given what we ask for, and sometimes it seems we are unchanged. So we struggle on, always searching for something out in space a thousand miles away that will change us from being defeated to being victorious.
The whole problem is that we view victory as something out in the twilight zone of the Spirit, while we are struggling along here on Planet Earth, toiling and sweating as we wrestle and fight against a powerful adversary. To us, victory is something we do not have, something we cannot see, something we are not experiencing, something that we must search for and diligently seek out until we find it. The routine of daily life becomes old. We hope to find the victory we seek in a new book, or a tape, or a teaching, or a ministry, or a church, or a group, or a video, or a seminar, or a special speaker, or a website, or a special discipline, or a spiritual regimen. We go through them one by one, and some of them even seem to work short-term, but eventually they will sit on the shelf in the recesses of our mind, collecting dust and never being put into practice beyond the initial excitement of having learned a new thing or riding the wave of the latest spiritual fad.
God does not give us a thing called victory. Instead, He gives us His Son to be our Victory. Christ is Victory. It is not a question of going forth to war in the name of Jesus and claiming the victory in advance. May I say that Victory does not depend upon whether you "claim" anything or not. Victory is a Man! Overcoming is entering into Victory Himself, being clothed with Victory, sharing in the Life of One Who overcame. Thus, our victory is bound up in the Lord Himself. It is not a separate grace or gift which He grants to certain ones who learn some principles of spiritual warfare. (Click here to read the rest of the article... (http://www.theschoolofchrist.org/articles/victory.html) )
This quote from the article speaks volumes...
When God is pleased to reveal His Son to us, we will learn that Victory is not a thing, but a Person; that Victory is not an experience, but a Man; that God does not give me a thing called victory, but has given me His Son in the place of victory in order to be my Victory. Then Victory will never be future-tense and far-away, but Ever Present and Now. For Victory is Christ. And Victory lives within you. Thus, Victory has nothing to do with the devil, and everything to do with Christ. Since most Christians have more faith, assurance and reverence for the devil than they do for the Lord Jesus, it is easy to see why so many are defeated.
I like that, James.
Me too. Thanks for commenting, twd.