victory
The life of faith is full of challenges, difficulties, and trials. But there are also times of victory. In the passages for today, we see three different types of victory.
1. Victory over your enemies - Psalm 18:16-24
David faced many battles in life. He was surrounded by enemies. They were ‘too strong’ for him (v.17b). However, they are not too strong for God. God rescued him from those that were too strong for him and brought him into a ‘spacious place’ (v.19). ‘I stood there saved – surprised to be loved!’ (v.19b, MSG).
If you are in a ‘spacious place’ at the moment, remember to thank God for it. If not, cry out to God to rescue you. And if any of your family or friends are struggling at the moment, pray that God will bring them too into a ‘spacious place’.
Lord, thank you for the times when you brought me out into a spacious place. Today I pray for…
2. Victory over your critics - Matthew 22:15-46
Jesus’ opponents interrogate him with three questions: a trap, a trick, and a test (v.17,23,35). Each time, he is victorious and gives an answer that not only amazes (v.22) and astonishes (v.33), but also influences the whole of human history. What can we learn from Jesus’ answers?
Don’t divide your life into sacred and secular: The Pharisees planned to trap Jesus with his words. They said to Jesus, ‘Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?’ (v.17). The taxes they referred to were extremely unpopular. If Jesus had said ‘Yes’, he would have been discredited in the eyes of the people. Everyone would have hated him and seen him as a traitor wanting to help the Romans. Yet if he had said, ‘No’, he would have been guilty of sedition and been liable to arrest and execution. Jesus, in his unique wisdom, did not lay down rules and regulations but expounded principles that are timeless. He gives an amazing answer: ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s’ (v.21). Every follower of Jesus has double citizenship. You have a responsibility to play your part as a good citizen involved in the structures of your society on earth. You are also a citizen of heaven with a responsibility to God. In principle, the two – Caesar and God – need not be in conflict. You are called to be a good citizen of both. Get involved in the life of your society, don’t withdraw from it. It is not that God is in charge of the ‘sacred’ area of your life and the government is in charge of the ‘secular’ area of your life. Rather, your whole life is under God’s authority. Part of your commitment to God is to honour and obey the demands that the government legitimately makes on you. In the same way that a coin would have born Caesar’s image, you bear God’s image (Genesis 1:26). God wants you to give him the whole of your life.
Know that there is life after death: Next, the Sadducees come along with a trick question about a woman with seven husbands. Because the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection they designed a complicated trick question to show how absurd it was (Matthew 22:23–28). Jesus replies, ‘You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God’ (v.29). Jesus uses the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible – which are the only ones the Sadducees trusted) to show that God is ‘not the God of the dead but of the living’ (v.32b). He does this by quoting God’s words to Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3:6: ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ (Matthew 22:32a). Although Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for hundreds of years, God did not say ‘I was their God’ but ‘I am their God.’ They are still alive. Jesus is showing that this life is not all there is. Furthermore, there will be continuity between this life and the life to come. There is a physical resurrection. Yet, there is discontinuity too for we ‘will be like the angels in heaven’ (v.30). Above all, the Scriptures show that there will be a resurrection and if God is all-powerful, why shouldn’t there be?
Prioritize love for God and others: Then, the Pharisees come up with a test question to which Jesus gives a brilliant answer, which goes to the heart of the whole of the Old Testament: love God (‘with all your passion and prayer and intelligence’, v.37, MSG) and love people (‘love others as well as you love yourself’, v.39, MSG). Everything else is a detailed working out of these two commands (v.34–40).
Having silenced his critics, Jesus then asks them a question about his identity. He shows from the Scriptures that Christ is not just David’s son – he is David’s Lord (vv.41–46). He demonstrates that the Messiah is far more than simply a great human king. This not only challenges their assumptions about the Messiah, but it is also a veiled indication to them of Jesus’ identity.
This is a moment of victory for Jesus: ‘That stumped them, literalists that they were. Unwilling to risk losing face again in one of these public verbal exchanges, they quit asking questions for good’ (v.46, MSG).
Father, please give me wisdom like Jesus to avoid the traps, to deal with the trick questions, and to answer the testing ones.
3. Victory over your temptations - Job 30:1-32:22
The book of Job demonstrates once and for all that sin and suffering are not necessarily directly connected to an individual’s sin or lack of sin. The whole point of the book of Job is that, although Job is not perfect (13:26; 14:17), it was not Job’s sin that caused his suffering. The job was ‘blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil’ (1:1).
Job knew that in spite of the accusations of his friends he had a totally clear conscience. It is as if he had been put on trial, facing his ‘accuser’ in the dock with an ‘indictment’ (31:35) against him. In today’s passage, he gives his defense (v.35).
Job’s life was an example, an inspiration, and a challenge. This is a wonderful picture of holy and righteous living.
Keep yourself pure: He said, ‘I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a girl’ (v.1). He was not enticed (v.9) in his heart into adultery. He realized that ‘adultery is a fire that burns the house down’ (v.12, MSG).
Avoid materialism: He did not put his trust in riches (v.24) in spite of the great wealth he had. Nor did he put his hope in pure gold by saying, ‘You are my security’ (v.24). Again, his heart had not been ‘secretly enticed’ (v.27).
Love your enemy: He had resisted the temptation to hate his enemies. He didn’t gloat when his enemies were in trouble (v.29b) – which is such a powerful temptation. There is a great temptation to speak words of anger, but Job did not allow his ‘mouth to sin by invoking a curse’ (v.30) against his enemies.
Be generous: It was not just in his personal life that he avoided sin. He was fair to his employees (v.13). He did not deny ‘the desires of the poor’ (v.16a). His ‘door was always open to the traveler’ (v.32).
Lord, help me to live with a clear conscience, to keep myself pure and to put my trust in you alone. Thank you that through the cross of Jesus, you make forgiveness for my past failures possible, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, I can be victorious over temptation.
