You might be asking yourself, why is Shayne focusing so much on victory and how to rule and reign in life? Let me answer that and say that it's because, by and large, the Church has got a theology of defeat. If you chat to a bunch of Christians, out on the streets, at church or at a Christian bookstore, you’ll find that most people have a theology of defeat. They believe that we will only experience victory one day when we die. But few believe that we can experience victory on earth now. With that theology of defeat comes a bunch of excuses as to why we struggle in life. Why do we suffer? Why, why did things go wrong and how we must just except sickness. Why we must suffer lack. I grew up believing that sin was just something you struggle with until you die. It's not something that you can really have victory of. I grew up believing that the devil was so strong, and that you have to trust that God won't allow him to attack you because there's no theology of victory. And the reason for that is really two-fold. Either it's complete ignorance (you don't know what the word says) or it's just wrong teaching.
The majority of Christians have a defeat theology; they believe that we are destined to be defeated in this life. There is no hope or very little hope given for overcoming. In most churches they’re just encouraging you to persevere through the suffering and at least they’re encouraging you, but they're encouraging you in the wrong thing. They're encouraging you just to sit tight and suffer for Jesus honourably and you'll get a reward in heaven. But there's no reward in heaven for suffering, except if it's for the Gospel. There's no reward for suffering with sickness, lack, sin or temptation. Jesus suffered so that you wouldn’t have to go through those sufferings! He paid a heavy price for us to be able to live in victory. But most Christians live with a defeat theology.
1 John 4:17 TPT,
Love has been brought to its full expression in us so that we may fiercely face the day of judgment because all that Jesus now is so are we in this world.
As Jesus is, so are we in this world. Jesus is victorious right now. And that's how we are in the spirit, in our spirit and the spiritual realm, we are victorious. And because of that, we are destined, we are set up to be able to live in victory and reign in life. We need to come to believe that and then we can experience it in this life. Victory should be the normal Christian life.
People don't live in victory simply because they don't know that they can live in victory or they've been taught that they can't live in victory. It's our ignorance that causes our suffering. Hosea 4:6 says, my people perish for lack of knowledge. It's a lack of knowledge; a lack of the truth that’s our problem. Jesus said, you shall come to know the truth and the truth shall make you free. The truth that you don't know cannot set you free. It's only the truth that you come to know that sets you free. So, we have a knowledge problem.
Many people think that we have a devil problem or a sin problem. Now I know I'm stepping on religious toes but it’s true! We do not have a sin problem in the world. We have a sin problem in so much as people are sinning and it's causing problems. Okay? But with regard to your relationship with God and, and living out your faith you don't. You're not struggling and suffering because sin is so powerful. Sin has been defeated at the cross and now as a believer, you have a new born again, righteous nature. And because of that, you are empowered to live a victorious life. The only reason you think that sin has got the upper hand on you is because you don't know who you are in Christ. You don't know you're, you're born again. You don’t know that you have a righteous nature because you're so focused on your sinful old man who is actually dead.
So many people blame the devil and think that the devil is so strong and bad and big and ugly. And yeah, he's terrible and he's a factor in our lives, but the only power he has against you, the only way that he can cause you to live in defeat is through deception. He's the father of lies. The lies that you believe from the devil will keep you in bondage and caused your suffering. I really love at what a Facebook friend of mine put on Facebook a couple of hours ago, Alan Chimpkins from Stellenbosch says, “the devil whispered to me, ‘I'm coming for you’, so I whispered back, ‘bring pizza’”. So many people would think that that's irreverent, but I think that's good theology. I remember the Sunday school teacher telling us when I was young, about how powerful the devil is and we need to respect him and all of this. And that's ridiculous. We are in Christ and Jesus has no respect for the devil, you know, so, so why do we?
We're bigger than the devil. And I think we're going to talk about this in the next couple of podcasts, but we need to realize we don't have a devil problem. We have a truth deficiency. And that's what causes our suffering. Jesus wants us to live in the abundant life, reign in life, live in victory over sin, over the devil, over temptation, over sickness, over lack and depression. He doesn't want any Christian to suffer with any of these things. That's not his will for you.
The first key to stepping into victory and living in victory is knowing what is God's will and what isn't God's will. And so, you need to come to know what is his will for you, that he wants you well, that he wants you free, that he wants you full of joy. And when you know that you've taken a step in the right direction, I trust that that encourages you. Join me again tomorrow and we'll continue talking about this.