Christians are never in a position, from the time that they’re born again, where they do not have victory. If hey sin, they are in a place where they accept defeat, but they are never in a position where they do not have victory.
Do you understand that? From the time that a person becomes a Christian, they never fail to have the victory. The problem is that sometimes they accept defeat. This seems like a paradox. The victory was won for us by Jesus Christ on the cross and given unto us, when we received the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 15:57 says, now thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
So, the victory is given to us. There is no time that we do not have that victory. It’s part of the redemptive provision of the Lord that we have victory over sin, over Satan, over the flesh, over the devil, over hell, and over the grave. All of this is our victory.
From the moment that we’re saved, we have that victory. You say, Then why don’t I have it? You do have it. It’s just that you accept defeat in your spirit.
The victory still remains yours, but you accepted defeat. You have provided for you in the realm of the spirit victory. But in your spirit, you may accept. Our spirit is not perfect, but it is divine. But things can get into our spirit, like unforgiveness, defeat. This is why we have to keep our spirit active through joining it to the Lord, keeping it built up, open to the Lord and closed to the devil.
Satan’s offensive weapon is to delude you into accepting defeat. And when he does, you have accepted a lie and it becomes a valid thing in your life because you have listened to Satan, you’ve accepted all the suggestions, you have positioned yourself as a person defeated in your spirit when all of the time the victory was continuously provided for you and given to you. It was an absolute fact. The victory is all yours.
The same thing applies when people say, Oh, I have such great needs. And that too is an illusion. For God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory–Philippians 4:19
2 Peter 1:3 His divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godliness.
Ephesians 1:3 He’s blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
If we position ourselves in this, if this is really our life. Then any time that we are admitting that we have needs that cannot be met, or that we’re defeated and oppressed because our needs aren’t met, we have given way to Satan’s great offensive to delude us into accepting defeat.
This message is important to you. What power you will have when you believe that you are what God says you are. That you believe that you have what He says He has given you. What power you will have when you believe that you can do what He says He’s given you authority to do.
Oh, that God would give us the grace to possess our possessions and not to accept the delusion of Satan as to limitation.
GOD ALWAYS LEADS US IN TRIUMPH
2Corinthians 2:14 Thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest to us the Savior of His knowledge in every place.
The word triumph in the Greek is thriambeuō- it means to make a acclamatory procession. YHVH desire to put us on display to principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this age, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Figuratively it means to conquer, to give victory, cause to triumph over.
2 Corinthians 10:3-6, For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being in readiness to avenge all disobedience when your obedience shall be made full.
This doesn’t speak of any limitation. Paul isn’t saying, well, we just might be able to make it now. He doesn’t say, well, if we just hang on and fight a little longer, we might win the victory.
Christians start in in a position of victory. That’s why Jesus died and rose again, that we stand in His victory.
Romans 8 says, We are more than conquerors. Nay, in all of these things, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
1 John 5:4 it says, Every one who is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith.
Not our struggle, not our effort, not even what we strive to attain, but our faith. We overcome the world because we have faith in Christ’s victory given to us. We believe in His provision. We accept the riches of His grace.
We believe in the grace of God simply and purely. There isn’t any message that’s more important to young people. With all the things that hit and tempt them, where they can begin to be so despondent and discouraged, because they do not realize they have the victory.
There’s been no time since your conversion that you didn’t have the victory. It was a part of a package deal that God gave you. Victory over all things that come against you, all things that assail you. To be an overcomer, to be triumphant is your inheritance. Then why aren’t more people experiencing it?
Because Satan, the great deceiver, is continually battling people into a feeling of inadequacy, into a wrong assessment of their circumstances, into a failure of faith in the midst of testing and trials, into discouragements over various problems that seem to be assaulting them, until they will accept defeat in their spirit.
VICTORY IN OUR SPIRIT
We never need to know what defeat is. Even though the victory has been given us in Christ, you’ll never walk in defeat until you have first been defeated in your spirit. Satan is not able to defeat you in any other area until you’ve been defeated in your spirit. That’s why the continual assault against a Christian is to reach his spirit. And the beginning of all failure comes with a person having a weak spirit.
The victory of Christ has been given us; it is a provision. But our spirit has to appropriate it. This is something we can do instantly, we can feel the victory in our spirit, when we are baptized in the Spirit. We can feel the strength of the Lord in our spirit, when we tune into it, then we must continually maintain it.
Ephesians 6:10 be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Be strong is an imperative in the Greek, it is a commandment. It is in the present tense, so it is something which should be continuous. We should always feel the strength of the Lord in our spirit.
When things get in your spirit and you get discouraged, depressed, or you give up, you become defeated in your spirit.
I don’t care what circumstance you face in the home. I don’t care what circumstance faces you in the business. I don’t care what circumstances face you in your own personal life. I don’t care what you face and how discouraging it may appear. These things cannot defeat you if your spirit remains in the victory of Jesus Christ.
When you walk in the spirit, it is impossible to fulfill the lusts of the flesh, it is impossible to be defeated. When you walk in the Spirit, you’re going to overcome. When you live in the Spirit, it is easy to walk in the Spirit.
When we are in bondage to addictions, it is hard to get free because we will suffer. But when we suffer in the flesh we cease from sin. By not yielding to the temptation, it gets easier because the temptations will fade away. And when we learn how to walk in the Spirit, even if we do get tempted, we will not yield to it, because we do not want to come down from the high plane we are on. Living in the Spirit is the abundant life, it is a joyous thing, and if we choose to yield to the flesh, we lose our joy, our spirit is grieved, we lose that high we get from walking with God. We say no to the devil, because we do want to come down.
Nothing reaches you when your spirit is right and when you maintain that victory of the Lord Jesus Christ. That victory is yours absolutely. It was given to you. It is your heritage. It is your legacy. It belongs to you with an endowment of the grace of God that rests upon your life.
And no one, no one can take that away from you until in your spirit you voluntarily open the door to defeat in your spirit. The reason I believe it’s true is that you are put in almost an unfathomable position, you can’t explain your position to someone at all.
If you can point to the defeat in a Christian’s life and still measure it up to the scriptures that have been written.
How can you read the scriptures, that God always causes us to triumph in Christ Jesus? Thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory, blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. How can you explain those scriptures in the light of any evidence of defeat in a Christians life? You either make God out a liar, or else you have no idea what a walk with God is.
The fact is through a lie and the deceit of Satan, you have accepted defeat in your spirit. He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh the city. And I’m persuaded that if you can keep your spirit right before the Lord and walk right before the Lord, you can have defenses in every area of your life, mental, psychic, physical, spiritual defenses that will be almost unequaled.
Oh, what power and victory you’ll have in your life when you believe in the victory that God has given you, when you believe that you are what He says you are, that you believe that He is what He says He is to you, that you believe that you can do what He says you can do, that you believe that what He’s promised, those promises are valid, and they are yours, and you can claim them.
Believe that you have now what He says you have, and you have only to claim it and to stand upon it, appropriate it, and fight the good fight of faith.
You don’t have to fight the fight for victory. You have to fight the fight of faith, because faith turns aside all the fiery darts to the wicked one. You are victorious when you have met the assault of Satan by saying, Satan, you’re a liar and the father of it.
And I believe in Christ Jesus. I believe what He has done for me and what He has made me. I believe in what I have become in Christ Jesus the Lord. Your confession is going to be one of positive faith from here on out. Amen. Because if He says you have victory, don’t relinquish it. Hang on to it. Amen.