Riverside Community Church Blog

“We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” - Romans 8:37

How much would it change your day if you woke up in the morning and started the fight FROM victory, instead of fighting FOR victory? This concept isn’t a new one (nothing is new under the sun). It is just something that has been germinating in my head the past several weeks as I develop my own thoughts on it. Jesus came to accomplish many things through the gospel, one of them is to give us a new starting point.

How easy is it for even us as Christians to wake up and go through our day chasing down victory and fighting FOR victory. It’s not just salvation we’re chasing. What’s “victory” for you? Is it chasing a certain level of comfort, chasing peace, chasing success, chasing the perfect relationship, chasing significance, and yet in this rat race are we ever really, truly arriving? If we’re honest with ourselves, the answer is “no”. These things will never truly satisfy us. We will always be left discontent and wanting more. We will always end our day feeling like we left something on the table. Like we didn't conquer.

If your living like this as a Christian, then you don’t understand the gospel. If you’re living like this as somebody who is not a Christian, then the gospel is good news. We don't have to be fighting FOR victory. One of the things Jesus did on the cross was give us a new starting point. Because of his love for us, on the cross, Christ has done all of the work for us. Because of his love, he willingly paid the penalty for our sin, granting us forgiveness that would otherwise be impossible, and His resurrection defeated sin and death. Death no longer stings, and sin no longer has power in our lives. He fought and won the battle for us. We receive the free gift of salvation, but it’s so much more than that. Those deep seated desires in every one of our hearts, that make us chase things are meant to be sought after in our creator - Jesus Christ.

Through God the Son, we are directly connected to God the Father. There is nothing more joyful, nothing that can make us more content, nothing that can make us feel more significant or fulfilled, nothing can bring us more peace or success, and no relationship can possibly adequately replace what we can enjoy in a relationship with our creator. Only in Christ, can we start FROM victory. Only in Christ is true contentment, true joy, true significance, true fulfillment, true peace, true success, true relationships, true comfort. Nothing we chase after during the day can come close to measuring up to what we can have in Christ.

Instead of chasing security, in Christ I am more secure than I could possibly be any way or anyplace else. When I wake up in the morning, I can start secure and move forward from there. Instead of chasing conquest and never really arriving, in Christ I start as a conqueror and move forward from there. I can go through my day knowing that nothing I do will ultimately quench the thirst of my heart. There is no victory to be had at the end of the day when I go to bed because I've started my day with victory.

How much would it change your day to be able to wake up and say, "I've already won". I don't have to lose my breath chasing after things that will never truly bring victory in my life. That's a game changer. Does this mean, I can just sit at home and do nothing all day? Absolutely not. We’re still called to be God’s workmanship, we’re created in Christ Jesus to do good works. The job you have where you are fighting tooth and nail to find significance and fulfillment in? It’s still your job, but in Christ your motivations have now changed. There is nothing more significant and fulfilling that you can possibly do than to bring the kingdom of God into your workplace. Light up those cubicles, those classrooms, those offices, and those conference rooms with the love and wisdom of Jesus.

I want you to have a well rounded and holistic understanding of this, so I want to put you in the shoes of other religions and then tie everything together...

Hinduism has about 330 million gods who must be appeased through some type of ritual. It is a system of things that one must do to reach moksha, the Hindu heaven. One of those things is the practice of yoga, which is a means of dying to one's body in the hope of delivering oneself from the physical realm and yoking one to Brahman, the Supreme Deity of Hinduism. Another thing is reincarnation, a system that enables one to work one's way to heaven through many births, deaths, and rebirths.

In Buddhism, Buddha believed that the key to reaching Nirvana, which is allegedly the state of perfect peace and happiness, is through an understanding of the Four Noble Truths and by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path. In essence, the Four Noble Truths declare that we endure suffering because of our desires or cravings. These "Truths" claim that suffering will stop when we cease trying to fulfill those desires. According to Buddhism, we can achieve this by following the Noble Eightfold Path, which has the elements of "right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration." This is all done by man's achievement - "doing things right" in order to reach Nirvana.

In Judaism, heaven is attained by keeping the Law and its ceremonies. Obviously, that isn't consistent with what the Tanakh (the Old Testament) teaches, yet that has been the practice of Judaism for millennia.

In Islam, salvation is attained when Allah weighs a follower's good works against his bad deeds on a scale at Judgment Day. It’s a quantitative process. The Qur'an declares: "For those things that are good remove those that are evil" (Surah 11:114). From the Qur'an again: "The balance that day will be true: Those whose scale of good works will be heavy, will prosper: Those whose scale will be light will find their souls in perdition" (Surah 7:8,9).

There is no victory in them. Hindu’s, Buddhists, Judaizers, and Muslims all wake up in the morning and begin fighting FOR victory and never attain it. They are religions of “do” that steal glory away from God and they cheapen His grace. Biblical Christianity and a relationship with Jesus is a “religion” of “done”. Because of our sin, there is nothing we can possibly do to achieve salvation, a relationship with God, and the joy and fulfillment our hearts desire. Because of our sin, we turn away from Him and go to other ways for significance and fulfillment. Because of sin, we go to other ways to fulfill the desires or our hearts. But when we repent, receive our creator's loving and redeeming work on the cross by simple faith, we win and can start from there. We win by essentially doing nothing, because Christ has done all of the work for us. God get's the glory, His grace remains exquisite and as exalted as it should be, and we get the win. We can wake up knowing we’ve already won because of what he has done for us. We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Start your day from there. It will change everything.