Victory Through Love

Love and victory are one in the same through love we can have victory in many things. The definition of the word victory is – “the overcoming of an enemy or antagonist or an achievement of mastery or success in a struggle or endeavor against odds or difficulties”. So what you obtain through victory is an overcoming of a struggle that you face. Jesus overcame death because of God’s love not only for him but for this world. One of the things about this struggle was that it wasn’t solely put on by the Devil, it was allowed by God. The Devil does put on every attack that comes against us but the difference is whether God puts an end to it or allows it for some unbeknownst reason. God allows us to go through struggles to where we might have to sacrifice things or gain revelation on certain circumstances. The things that we might have to end up sacrificing for his glory are things such as: friends, family, music, movies, or the way we think, etc. Jesus made the sacrifice of giving his LIFE by dying on the cross. He took on the weight of the world’s sin so that we might have freedom and victory whenever sin presents itself to us. Whenever God allows you to go through a struggle he already knows what the outcome will be. Honestly, He already knows the outcome of our life’s whether the struggles we face are allowed by him or not. I mean he knows how many hairs that our on our head and he already has a pre-destined calling on our life’s before we were formed in our mother’s wombs.

 Jesus died on the cross to take on our sins because he knew that we could not have victory if he did not sacrifice himself for us. The love of Christ is such a great and powerful thing because it is through his love that he died for our sins. To feel his compassion, his warm embrace, the tenderness of his heart. We must start to long after his heart because that is the only way we can have victory. We need not a natural love but we must develop a spiritual love. A love that can withstand all attacks, a love that when we get beat down we turn the other cheek and easily forgive. Such a love is a tough thing to grasp but Christ while dying on the cross forgave the men who at that moment were killing him. He spoke out the words "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." – Luke 23:34. To have such a love like that is the only way we can have victory because vengeance is not ours but is the Lord’s. We know that we have an eternity that is waiting for us in Heaven so let us not fall into the temptations of this world, let our minds not be tricked or fooled by simple games. But let us renew our minds daily and remember that we have victory in the love that the father desires to pour out on us. God has already given us the victory and has already proclaimed it when Jesus died on the cross, that no matter what attacks we may face we may stand upon the rock and not be blown away like the sand because Jesus gave us the keys to victory. How much heart wrenching and tougher it must have been if Jesus did not know that he already had the victory that he would not raise up 3 days later with our eternal salvation. BUT GOD....he already had a plan. Even as Jesus walked into the city the Sunday before his crucifixion God was showing him yet again that he had the victory. When Jesus entered into Jerusalem people were screaming at the top of their lungs hosanna, hosanna and laying down palm tree branches at his feet. When you research the word ‘victory’ a synonym of the word ‘victory’ is the word ‘palm’. I think to myself how ‘palm’ and ‘victory’ can even be related, but when you look at the definitions of the word ‘palm’ it gives you these 2 definitions:

1: a leaf of the palm as a symbol of victory or rejoicing; also: a branch (as of laurel) similarly used

2: a symbol of triumph or superiority.

Jesus was coming into Jerusalem on Passover well knowing this would be his last week on Earth and the people un-knowingly were laying down palm branches so that he could walk on a path of ultimate victory and have triumph over the devil for it says in Hebrews 2:8 “You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” ……even death.

In darkness there is death but in light there is victory. Jesus was known as the light to this world. When light enters a room the darkness dissipates and flees. Jesus came into this world and died in this world but He had a victory and overcame the darkness of death and provided us with an open doorway into His kingdom. We no longer have to go through priests, or sacrifices, or enter holy temples to feel His presence. His presence lives in us, we are now His holy temple and He is now our High Priest. We need not do the things of the past because His love for us allows us to experience Him anywhere, it could be in the bathroom at McDonalds...it seriously does not matter because when you seek His face He will reveal himself to you because He is a God with emotions that longs for us to pursue Him. He pursues us daily and it sorrows Him and causes Him to weep when we don't seek Him back because He wants us to bask in His splendor. The Devil tries to keep us from this, he tries to keep us from our relationship with Him, our relationship with Jesus is categorized as a bride to bridegroom relationship because one day with a mighty force from Heaven will come back and swoop us away and take us into a glorious eternity worshipping and loving Him. The challenges we face may not even be something huge, it may just being caught up in our daily lives and staying busy that we lose that perfect image of His face and it starts to become blurry. In saying this, I mean we start focusing on so many other things that He becomes second rate to us. All we need though is to put our glasses on and refocus our gaze on Him. He wants to always pour out His love on us so that we may be victorious, and since that is the case why would He ever leave? He is always there for us to rest our head upon His lap and Him just love on us.

When we go through tough times, times when we question God; when we say where are you Lord? I need you now and yet you do not provide. We must rest our head on His lap and allow Him to love on us. To pour out His grace on us and to whisper in our ears “It will all be ok”. Through His love for us He will provide the necessary means for us to make it through the tough times to where we can have victory over the attacks of the Devil. It is through His love that he gave us victory and it is through this same love that we have the victory.

I encourage everyone to go read Ben Yackell’s blog about being love sick for God. It opened up my eyes to the fact that I am not where I need to be at in my love relationship with him. To feel His comforting embrace, to feel His love consuming my body is what I long for because I know that no matter what I may face that He will always love me and that at the end of the day, at the end of trials and tribulations that I have the victory, that my savior lives, and that I get to spend all of my days worshipping him at His holy feet. That I have victory through his LOVE!!

Lord I pray that you make not only me but also the people that read this blog in the likeness of You. To love like you love and to see people how you see them. I proclaim victory in everyone’s life that read this and that all chains of bondage broken off of them so they can be a testimony for Your glory. And that they come to the realization of Your glorious love and that You love them so much as to help them through their trials. I pray all these things in Your precious name. AMEN 

The Beginning

Hey everyone thanks for coming and reading my first blog. A good friend of mine has a blog and suggested to me that me and my wife do a bible study at our apartment or do a blog. We feel like we’re not at the place right now to hold a bible study but are defiantly growing towards that place in ours. So I started to start a blog that my wife (her name is Erica) will also write on sometimes. Hopefully it is as good as Ben Yackells and my brother’s J.

The reason we decided to name our blog “Called and Chosen” is because we feel as though God has put a calling on our lives but we don’t want to be complacent with that calling. We want to step out with the abilities God has given us, show our due diligence, and be chosen by the King of Kings. I like to compare it to an interviewing process. So many people fill out an application for the same job and a majority of them are called in for an interview. The question is will the people actually show up for the interview? If we don’t go out of our way and make time in our life to do the things we have been called to do then how will we ever be chosen. It says in Revelation 17:14 “ These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings; and those who are with Him are called, chosen , and faithful." We need not to be just called and not just chosen but also be FAITHFUL. We have to commit our time and our effort into our calling and then commit even more time and effort once you are chosen. Just because you have been chosen to do something doesn't mean you can now get lazy it means that you are now held to a higher standard than those around you. As servants of God we are held to a higher standard anyways. We are his bride and as his bride we must be prepared for when he comes so that way we can be chosen. Like the parable of the 10 virgins, for those of you who haven’t heard/read it…it can be found in Matthew 25:1-13, 5 of them were prepared for when the groom came. The other 5 were called yet they were not faithful and were not overly prepared. I just recently got married and I can say for a fact that my bride checked, double checked, even triple checked to make sure she had everything prepared for the day of the wedding…..I really don’t want to try and imagine what it would be like if we had forgot something important….scary. Everyone understands the saying that we as the church body are the “Bride of Christ’. To be prepared for his coming isn’t like an earthly bride being prepared with all the make-up and hair and nails and dress and all that but it is much more of a spiritual sense. We were made in the perfect image of God but when Adam and Eve ate of the apple in the Garden of Eden they allowed the Devil to steal that pureness from us and rob us of our destiny. But through the sacrifice and the love of Jesus dying on the cross we were given a pathway, a doorway, back to that perfect image. We have all already been called and had a calling placed upon our lives. But are you willing to go through the process of trying to make yourself back into that perfect image of Christ (which is a lifelong process) so that you can be chosen. That is the whole reason me and my wife have this blog. We want to start stepping out in the calling God has upon our life plus enable people to step into theirs and to encourage them to keep working towards being chosen. I hope everyone enjoys our blogs and every one of you is in our prayers. God Bless!