What is victory?
Every morning about a dozen deer saunter to my feeding trough. They jostle for prime dining positions and sometimes kick another away. Eventually, everyone gets fed. After the hubbub feeding frenzy and all the deer have left, a deer with an amputated leg limps to the trough. At first, I shut my eyes or walk out of the room because it is hard to see him struggle. Every morning, he labors silently to the trough. I used to call him Dangler (his leg dangled from his elbow) but this winter I changed his name to Victory. He limps carefully and victoriously on three legs to the trough. He has decisively chosen to hoof (pardon the pun) through his crises.
How do we define victory for our own lives? We have victory in Christ Jesus.
"But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" (1 Corinthians 15:57)
God sent Jesus, a baby, to grow up and die on the cross for our sins. Christian author Quina Aragon phrases it a different way.
The Father decreed that He’d send His beloved Son on a rescue mission (John 8:42). The son agreed to this blood-soaked mission in loving submission to the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).”
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13,14)
We have victory because God loved us before the beginning of time.
Quina Aragon describes God’s love for us before creation and Adam and Eve.
Did you know that if you’re a Christ follower today, it’s because God—according to His own free will—chose to set His eternal, unfailing love upon you before He created a single thing? This is the prologue to your story, the beginning before the beginning. Before you danced in your mother’s womb, before Adam and Eve, your greatest-grandparents, ever walked the earth, before stars lit up the night sky, there was God—handpicking you to inherit a bottomless ocean: His love.
The victorious life is God’s love for us before the beginning of time. We began with victory with God sending his son to earth as a baby to grow up and die on the cross for our sins. We confess our sins and ask him to live in us so we can live in victory every day of our lives.
The victorious life, for me, is morning coffee and nestling in my leather chair with my Bible and journal and asking the Lord, “What do you want me to learn about you today? What spiritual adventures do you want me to experience? How can I serve and please you?” Peeking out the window, I watch the deer saunter away with full bellies and then Victory, decisively and slowly limps to the trough to eat and be satisfied.