Winning in the Battles of Life

We hear quite a lot about the idea of overcoming and winning in life. At the end of movies, the good guy wins and the movie is over. “They all lived happily ever after”’ is a great idea. However, the winning in life is not just about achieving a goal, like so many motivational clips, songs and memes would tell us. In Romans 8, the apostle Paul reminds us that, yes, we are to win but that is not all. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”   -Romans 8:37

There is more than the conquering. Let’s look at the three levels of fully winning in life. In the Old Testament, Joshua was asked to lead Israel into the promised land. To do that, they would need to fight battles, but there was more than just the fight.

Taking the Land

In chapters 1-12 of the book of Joshua, we see the battles fought and they actually won the land. Just as in our own battles, there was struggle and some defeat but, with trust in the Lord, they had ultimate victory. This was a model to victory that was employed often for the children of Israel. It went like this: prayer, then worship, then the fight.

If we want to win the battle, we need to seek the Lord, praise Him for all we have, then move into the conflict. This was a model that never lost. Now, victory does not always look the way we think it should but we must trust in God’s plan.

Allotting the Land

In Joshua, chapters 13-21, we see how God had given the land in different ways to different tribes of Israel. So many times when we have blessing, and we feel like we have won, we seek to utilize the winning for our own good. We sometimes forget to ask God what He thinks about what we’ve won. Think about the blessings of life. What if we received them just to give them away; to bless others? What blessings have we received and have yet to enquire God about? It doesn’t always mean we would need to give it away but perhaps, ask Him how it is meant to be used? Talk to God about what He has given - our jobs, money, family, possessions. What does God think?

Retaining the Land

In the last chapters of the book of Joshua, 22-24, we see the struggle to retain the land given to the Israelites. When the winning is done how do we keep the blessing? This is not always an easy thing to do. Often, we are so focused on gaining things that we are not focused on how we keep it. I’ve heard many champions say that winning the championship was the easy part but keeping it was the struggle. There are always others who want what we have. The trick is to earn that blessing every day that we have it. The children of Israel had the same struggle we have . . . complacency. They began to compromise and not worry about upholding the honor of being given such an awesome gift. We win by achieving, not once, but every day.

We are more than conquerors. We’re meant to conquer, maintain and retain what the Lord has given to us. This is true winning in the battles of life.

 

Rene Solis is Director of Koinonia School of Ministry, a ministry of Koinonia Church in Hanford, CA. He can be reached at ksm@kcfchurch.org or by calling 559-582-1528.