VICTORIOUS LIFE STUDIESWHAT IS THE VICTORIOUS LIFE?Areyou enjoying the Victorious Life?The Victorious Life is a life of victory over sin. Do you have it?The Victorious Life is a life of constant fellowship with God. Do you have it?The Victorious Life is a life of fruit-bearing. Do you have it?Do you have the peace of God that passeth all understanding? Do you have freedom from worry and discouragement so that you are “anxious in nothing”? Do you have the joy of the Lord, which is independent of feeling, and independent of circumstances? Are you ablein all thingsto give thanks?Have you, shed abroad in your heart, the love that suffers long and is kind, that envies not, that vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own,is not provoked?Do you enjoy in actual experience the fruit of the Spirit, in its nine-fold variety: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control? (Gal.5: 22, 23).Is prayer a precious reality to you, so that you can come to a living, present Lord to talk over every question that affects your life? Do you know what it is to ask and receive, to abide in him and have his word abide in you so that whatsoever you ask you receive? Do your prayers change things?Is the Bible to you sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, more to be desired than gold? Do you go each day to the Word and get a direct personal message from the Master to your own soul, to meet the very need of that day?If this picture of the Spirit-filled Life, as it is givenin the Word of God, does not describe the experience you are having, then you do not have the Victorious Life. There is something that the Lord Jesus offers thatyou do not have. You may have some of these things at times, you may have glorious fruit-bearing, you may know the Lord in a vital and real way, but if there is notcomplete victoryover sin,—which includes such things as worry, discouragement, lack of love, irritation, pride, jealousy, impatience, covetousness, worldliness, lust,—then you do not have the Victorious Life, and there is an experience in Christ awaiting you which will transform life.Your lack in these things does not mean, necessarily, that you are not a Christian, a born-again child of God, saved by the blood of Christ: it does mean that you are not using in experience what the Lord Jesus provided for you by his death and resurrection.The First Step Toward VictoryDo you believe there is something in the Christian life that you have not found, or that you do not possess? And do you want that experience? If you can say yes to these questions, then give thanks to God that he has led you by his Grace to take the first step toward Victory.The first step toward the Victorious Life is for a Christian to recognize the need, to realize that there is an experience that he does not possess. As in the case of an unconverted man who can never understand nor receive the Gospel message till he comes to the place of seeing himself a sinner, so a satisfied and defeated Christian is in no place to receive the Victorious Life message. The defeated man described in the seventh chapter of Romans cries out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” The reason some Christians have nevertasted the victory of the eighth chapter of Romans is because they have never known anything of the struggle that is described in the seventh chapter of Romans.A College Student’s “Problem”A young college student came to a speaker on the Victorious Life for an interview, but started in by saying that he had no “problems” in his Christian life.“Do you have complete victory over sin?”“Well, it depends on what you mean by sin.”“Do you ever have angry thoughts and feelings in your heart toward others?”“Do you mean get 'peeved’ at people? Sure I do.”“Do you ever worry about things?”“Worry about things! I should say I do. Everybody does.”“Do you ever have impure thoughts and desires in your heart?”“Yes, I do.”“These things are sins, aren’t they?”“Yes, I suppose they are.”“These are the things that put the Lord Jesus on the Cross. You have these things in your life, you do not have victory over them and other like sins, and yet you tell me you have no 'problem’ in your Christian life.”This young college student was led by the Spirit to see the inner meaning of sin and to confess that he did indeed need something in his Christian life that he did not have.The sin problem is the problem of all problems. If the sin problem in your life is settled in God’s way, you will have the secret of solving all other problems in God’s way. Fellowship with God, peace, joy, freedom from anxiety, power for service, the right enjoymentand use of Bible study and prayer, all of these things and every gift of grace will be open to you when you get the sin question settled. At Victorious Life conferences, Christians come to the leaders and say that they are not troubled in the matter of getting victory over sin, but that they do not get results in their Christian service and they want the Holy Spirit for power in service. In every such case it is found that the real difficulty is the sin question: there is not complete, Spirit-given victory over inward sin. When that is settled the power in service and the results follow.When God came to choose a name for his Son, some one has pointed out, he went to the heart of the subject and called his name “Jesus,” because it is he that shall save his people from their sins. It is going to the heart of the Christian’s need, then, first to emphasize victory over sin as the road to all other blessings of the Abundant Life.What is God’s way of securing this Victory?There are two ways of getting money, or any other thing ofvalue—eitherworking for it, or receiving it as a gift.Two Ways to Seek VictoryThere are two ways of seeking aftersalvation—workingfor it or receiving it as a gift. But there are not two ways ofobtainingsalvation or eternal life. For when a sinner works, he works sin; and thewagesof sin is death. Life is never earned. Death is. Life must be given. So the free gift of God, the only author of life, is eternal life. We are saved by Grace, not by works, for the least particle of “works” would make Grace void.There are two ways of seeking after the Victorious Life, present freedom from the law ofsin—workingfor it, striving and struggling after it, or receiving itas a free gift, without effort. There are not two ways ofobtainingVictory. For when a saved sinner struggles with inward desires toward evil he is under thelaw—usinghis ownefforts—andnot under grace, and the struggle at some time or other always ends in defeat.The Victorious Life is a free gift from God. It cannot be earned. It therefore must be accepted on the same terms as salvation from the penalty of sin. It must be received as a gift. To enjoy a gift one has but to take it, and thank the giver.“Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace” (Rom.6:14). “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor.12:9).To believe these words of God is to enjoy the gift of victory.“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom.8:2).To believe this word is to enjoy present freedom from the law of sin. “Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.... If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:34, 35).“If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Gal.5:18), that is, we are under Grace. And Grace means, Jesus Christ is doing it all for us, winning the victory for us by his indwelling power.The Much More SalvationThese Scriptures show clearly that God’s way of victory over present sin is by the power of the Holy Spirit. That new law, the law of the Spirit, makes us free from the law of sin. “If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we besaved by his life” (Rom.5:10). This is the “much more salvation,” present salvation by his indwelling life. Reconciled saints need to be “saved,” and the Victorious Life is nothing other than salvation by free grace, in present action, applied to each temptation and problem.God’s plan of salvation from the present power of sin, therefore, is exactly the same plan as he has revealed for salvation from the death penalty of sin. Both are by free grace without effort on your part. Both are to be received and enjoyed by faith. After the remarkable passage in the fifth chapter of Galatians, which gives the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit, there is this statement: “If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk” (Gal.5:25). That is, since we have been born again by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, by that same supernatural Spirit, without effort on our part, let us also live our daily lives, winning victory over sin by just letting the fruit of the Spirit be produced, letting the rivers of living waters flow out (John 7:38).It follows from this that every Christian really has received the gift of Victory from God, for it is just the indwelling Christ through the power of the Spirit. But how few, how very few Christians are enjoying the remarkable results of that gift, the freedom from the law of sin, the fruit of the Spirit. Why is this? A generation ago there were very many earnest Christians who thought it presumptuous to be sure of their salvation. They may have been saved and been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, but they were not, and some Christians to-day are not,enjoying assurance of salvation. Even so defeated Christians, who walk now and then after the flesh and fall into sin, are not enjoying the freedom that Christ purchased for them. They are not living up to their privileges in theLord. The word of freedom has not been benefiting them, because it has not been united by faith with them that heard. “For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard” (Heb.4:2).The Two Simple ConditionsThe simplicity of entering into this New Life has been a stumbling block to many. For there are but two conditions for victory, and every Christian has been given grace to meet these two conditions. The first is surrender. For that resurrection life of Jesus can only operate when our self effort ceases. “Yield yourselves unto God” (Rom.6:13). Or as Weymouth translates it: “Surrender your very selves unto God.” And this was spoken to Christians. This surrender of the Christian to God is positive, not negative. It is not as a surrender of things, nor of an evil self life, but a yielding of self with all its powers to God, as alive from the dead. With this positive surrender everything contrary to God’s will goes out of the life.Surrender a Definite MatterFailure frequently comes in the life of Victory because there has not been a complete surrender. Something has been held back. Or we have been too superficial in our understanding of what crucifixion of the old self life means. Now our Lord is lovingly ready to meet us when we come eager for full salvation and willing to make full surrender to him. He will show us if we ask him,and wait for his answer, whether there is anything that is not wholly surrendered to him. Some Christians say this matter of surrender is very vague, and they cannot tell whether they have really surrenderedcompletely. As a matter of fact, the Holy Spirit is always very definite when we deal with him earnestly. One woman who said the surrender matter was entirely too vague for her to know whether she had surrendered, after some questioning remarked: “Well, of course, I would not be willing to have my two sons go to Africa as missionaries.” The matter of surrender was very definite for her and until this Christian mother lays her two boys on the altar for Christ she will not know complete victory.Young people sometimes stumble over surrendering such things as worldly amusements, the theatre, dramatic moving pictures, dancing, card-playing, smoking. They argue that they do not regard these things as sins, though others may believe them to be. But surely if we are facing the question of getting such a great Gift as Christ as our Victory and very Life, these things are small matters to yield. But if they are not sins, are they “weights” in the Christian race? “Let us ... lay asideevery weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us” (Heb.12:1).When A Christian Robs ChristBut, it may be objected, how can a Christian surrender? Does he not already belong to Christ? Ah, that is the sad tragedy of it. Will a man rob God? Yes, the Church of Christ is largely robbing him to-day of the only offering he caresfor—ourselvesas living sacrifices. We are indeed bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ, we are not our own, we belong to him. Haveyouacknowledged this ownership in every detail, not with your lips alone, but with your life, in its every action? That is the first requirement for Victory. And Victory will never be enjoyed until the surrender question is settled. An earnest young Christian woman was in defeat and distressbecause there was something she would not yield. She acknowledged it was pride, but she could not give it up.“Whom do you belong to?” she was asked.“Christ.”“What price did he pay for you?”“His own life.”“But you are saying to him there is something you are holding back. What are you doing?”“I suppose I am crucifying him afresh,” she answered, the tears coming.“Yes, you are robbing him.”But the struggle went on and she would not yield.“Will you kneel down and just tell the Lord that you are robbing him, and that you intend to keep on robbing him?”She shrank from such a thought, and she kneeled down and told her Lord that shewouldyield that one thing she was holding back, and that there was nothing that she was not willing to do that he wanted.She arose with a radiant face, and as the days went on it developed that God did not want her to do the thing she was shrinking back from doing. A Christian may be kept out of victory because he says he would not be willing to go to the mission field, or send his sons to the mission field. Godmay not want him to go, but he can never have Victory as long as there is an unwillingness to do what Godmaywant him to do. For this is doubting God and his love.More Needed Than SurrenderBut there are multitudes of Christians who are truly surrendered, holding nothing back, who do not have Victory. For the surrendered life is not necessarily the Victorious Life. Surrender isourpart. The supernatural work of Victory isGod’spart.God isdoing his part as soon as we yield ourselves, and we get the benefit of it when we believe that fact. This is Victory by faith. “Faith does nothing. Faith believes that God is doing it all.” Faith is just believing the word of God. Those marvelous promises, or rather “facts” of God’s Grace which have been quoted above can only be received by the Christian who is holding nothing back from God. Then all the rest is God’s work.Is he faithful? We have surrendered. Is our part then to believe that God will give us Victory?No, that is not faith.“Victory’s final secret,” as Mr. Trumbull has put it, is to believe that Christisdoing his part, that his Graceissufficient, that wearefree from the law of sin, that weareunder Grace and not under law and that therefore sinis not having dominionover us, that heismeeting all our needs, but wearewalking in the Spirit. This is “letting God.”Will you not “let go, and let God?” Now?If you do, you can say with Paul, not only as a truth of your position in Christ, but as the blessed truth of your experience: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal.2:20).What It Is NotThe Victorious Life is not a life free from temptation, but a life of victory over temptation. First Corinthians 10:13, with its “there is no temptation” is an absolute guarantee from God that victory over all temptations is possible; for he himself provides the way of escape. Jesus,—in his resurrection Life,—is the Way.The Victorious Life is not a life free from the possibility of falling into sin. It is always possible at anymoment to sin, and as soon as our eyes get off Jesus faith slips, self is in control, and the result is sin.The Victorious Life is not dependent on circumstances. Nothing is too hard for God, not even your hard circumstances. And let us always remember that the Victorious Life is “the Life that is Christ.” He is as able under one circumstance as under another.The Victorious Life is not an attainment by growth. True growth in Grace really begins when we take the Grace of the Lord for complete victory over sin. Growth in Grace does not mean gradually getting rid of our sins, but it does mean growing from one degree of glory to another degree of glory as we behold the Lord and are changed into his image (2 Cor.3:18).The Victorious Life gives no cause for boasting of spiritual attainment. Grace excludes boasting. It gives us no holiness of our own. The holiness and the victory are His, and the most mature saint in the walk of faith needs the same secret of Victory as the young Christian just entering into the Life. His strength is ever made perfect in weakness. My weakness is never made stronger, though as I learn more of the Bible teaching of what faith is I may get more and more established in acting by faith.Continuing in VictoryWe continue in the Life of Victory as we entered it, by continuing the attitude of surrender and faith, moment by moment. It is the principle of “contact”; as long as the trolley keeps on the wire the electric power is supplied to run the car; as we keep looking unto Jesus there is Victory. If a slip of faith comes, if the trolley gets off the wire, and sin enters (which is always possible but never necessary), do not stop to argue with Satan about the sin or listen to his suggestion that you never had Victory: confess, receiveinstant forgiveness (1 John 1:9), look again in faith just as when you entered into the blessed “rest of faith.”Does this message leave you with joy and gladness in your heart, because you know that this life is yours? Have you taken the Gift? Or are you like the young Christian who told an older woman that she had surrendered and believeda thousand times, and she was in hopeless darkness about it all.“Well,” this older Christian said, “just stop doing that, or trying to do anything, and trust him to do it all.”“I have done that a hundred times,” was the discouraged answer.She had no will power to do anything, and she was hungry for Victory.“If you can do nothing else, just lift up your heart to Christ.”“I can’t. My heart is too heavy to lift up.”It Is as Simple as This“Well, one thing you can do, for it is just a physical act. You can lift up your eyes. Will you do that?”The young woman promised that she would do that, and on the way home she kept her eyes directed upward as unto him. The next day she gave her testimony with a radiant face, rejoicing in the Lord: “I lifted up my eyes, and my heart went up with them.”The Victorious Life is just as gloriously simple asthat—justlookingup—untoJesus—andKEEP ON LOOKING.
Areyou enjoying the Victorious Life?
The Victorious Life is a life of victory over sin. Do you have it?
The Victorious Life is a life of constant fellowship with God. Do you have it?
The Victorious Life is a life of fruit-bearing. Do you have it?
Do you have the peace of God that passeth all understanding? Do you have freedom from worry and discouragement so that you are “anxious in nothing”? Do you have the joy of the Lord, which is independent of feeling, and independent of circumstances? Are you ablein all thingsto give thanks?
Have you, shed abroad in your heart, the love that suffers long and is kind, that envies not, that vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own,is not provoked?
Do you enjoy in actual experience the fruit of the Spirit, in its nine-fold variety: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control? (Gal.5: 22, 23).
Is prayer a precious reality to you, so that you can come to a living, present Lord to talk over every question that affects your life? Do you know what it is to ask and receive, to abide in him and have his word abide in you so that whatsoever you ask you receive? Do your prayers change things?
Is the Bible to you sweeter than honey and the honeycomb, more to be desired than gold? Do you go each day to the Word and get a direct personal message from the Master to your own soul, to meet the very need of that day?
If this picture of the Spirit-filled Life, as it is givenin the Word of God, does not describe the experience you are having, then you do not have the Victorious Life. There is something that the Lord Jesus offers thatyou do not have. You may have some of these things at times, you may have glorious fruit-bearing, you may know the Lord in a vital and real way, but if there is notcomplete victoryover sin,—which includes such things as worry, discouragement, lack of love, irritation, pride, jealousy, impatience, covetousness, worldliness, lust,—then you do not have the Victorious Life, and there is an experience in Christ awaiting you which will transform life.
Your lack in these things does not mean, necessarily, that you are not a Christian, a born-again child of God, saved by the blood of Christ: it does mean that you are not using in experience what the Lord Jesus provided for you by his death and resurrection.
Do you believe there is something in the Christian life that you have not found, or that you do not possess? And do you want that experience? If you can say yes to these questions, then give thanks to God that he has led you by his Grace to take the first step toward Victory.
The first step toward the Victorious Life is for a Christian to recognize the need, to realize that there is an experience that he does not possess. As in the case of an unconverted man who can never understand nor receive the Gospel message till he comes to the place of seeing himself a sinner, so a satisfied and defeated Christian is in no place to receive the Victorious Life message. The defeated man described in the seventh chapter of Romans cries out, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?” The reason some Christians have nevertasted the victory of the eighth chapter of Romans is because they have never known anything of the struggle that is described in the seventh chapter of Romans.
A young college student came to a speaker on the Victorious Life for an interview, but started in by saying that he had no “problems” in his Christian life.
“Do you have complete victory over sin?”
“Well, it depends on what you mean by sin.”
“Do you ever have angry thoughts and feelings in your heart toward others?”
“Do you mean get 'peeved’ at people? Sure I do.”
“Do you ever worry about things?”
“Worry about things! I should say I do. Everybody does.”
“Do you ever have impure thoughts and desires in your heart?”
“Yes, I do.”
“These things are sins, aren’t they?”
“Yes, I suppose they are.”
“These are the things that put the Lord Jesus on the Cross. You have these things in your life, you do not have victory over them and other like sins, and yet you tell me you have no 'problem’ in your Christian life.”
This young college student was led by the Spirit to see the inner meaning of sin and to confess that he did indeed need something in his Christian life that he did not have.
The sin problem is the problem of all problems. If the sin problem in your life is settled in God’s way, you will have the secret of solving all other problems in God’s way. Fellowship with God, peace, joy, freedom from anxiety, power for service, the right enjoymentand use of Bible study and prayer, all of these things and every gift of grace will be open to you when you get the sin question settled. At Victorious Life conferences, Christians come to the leaders and say that they are not troubled in the matter of getting victory over sin, but that they do not get results in their Christian service and they want the Holy Spirit for power in service. In every such case it is found that the real difficulty is the sin question: there is not complete, Spirit-given victory over inward sin. When that is settled the power in service and the results follow.
When God came to choose a name for his Son, some one has pointed out, he went to the heart of the subject and called his name “Jesus,” because it is he that shall save his people from their sins. It is going to the heart of the Christian’s need, then, first to emphasize victory over sin as the road to all other blessings of the Abundant Life.
What is God’s way of securing this Victory?
There are two ways of getting money, or any other thing ofvalue—eitherworking for it, or receiving it as a gift.
There are two ways of seeking aftersalvation—workingfor it or receiving it as a gift. But there are not two ways ofobtainingsalvation or eternal life. For when a sinner works, he works sin; and thewagesof sin is death. Life is never earned. Death is. Life must be given. So the free gift of God, the only author of life, is eternal life. We are saved by Grace, not by works, for the least particle of “works” would make Grace void.
There are two ways of seeking after the Victorious Life, present freedom from the law ofsin—workingfor it, striving and struggling after it, or receiving itas a free gift, without effort. There are not two ways ofobtainingVictory. For when a saved sinner struggles with inward desires toward evil he is under thelaw—usinghis ownefforts—andnot under grace, and the struggle at some time or other always ends in defeat.
The Victorious Life is a free gift from God. It cannot be earned. It therefore must be accepted on the same terms as salvation from the penalty of sin. It must be received as a gift. To enjoy a gift one has but to take it, and thank the giver.
“Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace” (Rom.6:14). “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Cor.12:9).
To believe these words of God is to enjoy the gift of victory.
“The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom.8:2).
To believe this word is to enjoy present freedom from the law of sin. “Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin.... If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:34, 35).
“If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law” (Gal.5:18), that is, we are under Grace. And Grace means, Jesus Christ is doing it all for us, winning the victory for us by his indwelling power.
These Scriptures show clearly that God’s way of victory over present sin is by the power of the Holy Spirit. That new law, the law of the Spirit, makes us free from the law of sin. “If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we besaved by his life” (Rom.5:10). This is the “much more salvation,” present salvation by his indwelling life. Reconciled saints need to be “saved,” and the Victorious Life is nothing other than salvation by free grace, in present action, applied to each temptation and problem.
God’s plan of salvation from the present power of sin, therefore, is exactly the same plan as he has revealed for salvation from the death penalty of sin. Both are by free grace without effort on your part. Both are to be received and enjoyed by faith. After the remarkable passage in the fifth chapter of Galatians, which gives the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit, there is this statement: “If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk” (Gal.5:25). That is, since we have been born again by the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, by that same supernatural Spirit, without effort on our part, let us also live our daily lives, winning victory over sin by just letting the fruit of the Spirit be produced, letting the rivers of living waters flow out (John 7:38).
It follows from this that every Christian really has received the gift of Victory from God, for it is just the indwelling Christ through the power of the Spirit. But how few, how very few Christians are enjoying the remarkable results of that gift, the freedom from the law of sin, the fruit of the Spirit. Why is this? A generation ago there were very many earnest Christians who thought it presumptuous to be sure of their salvation. They may have been saved and been blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, but they were not, and some Christians to-day are not,enjoying assurance of salvation. Even so defeated Christians, who walk now and then after the flesh and fall into sin, are not enjoying the freedom that Christ purchased for them. They are not living up to their privileges in theLord. The word of freedom has not been benefiting them, because it has not been united by faith with them that heard. “For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard” (Heb.4:2).
The simplicity of entering into this New Life has been a stumbling block to many. For there are but two conditions for victory, and every Christian has been given grace to meet these two conditions. The first is surrender. For that resurrection life of Jesus can only operate when our self effort ceases. “Yield yourselves unto God” (Rom.6:13). Or as Weymouth translates it: “Surrender your very selves unto God.” And this was spoken to Christians. This surrender of the Christian to God is positive, not negative. It is not as a surrender of things, nor of an evil self life, but a yielding of self with all its powers to God, as alive from the dead. With this positive surrender everything contrary to God’s will goes out of the life.
Failure frequently comes in the life of Victory because there has not been a complete surrender. Something has been held back. Or we have been too superficial in our understanding of what crucifixion of the old self life means. Now our Lord is lovingly ready to meet us when we come eager for full salvation and willing to make full surrender to him. He will show us if we ask him,and wait for his answer, whether there is anything that is not wholly surrendered to him. Some Christians say this matter of surrender is very vague, and they cannot tell whether they have really surrenderedcompletely. As a matter of fact, the Holy Spirit is always very definite when we deal with him earnestly. One woman who said the surrender matter was entirely too vague for her to know whether she had surrendered, after some questioning remarked: “Well, of course, I would not be willing to have my two sons go to Africa as missionaries.” The matter of surrender was very definite for her and until this Christian mother lays her two boys on the altar for Christ she will not know complete victory.
Young people sometimes stumble over surrendering such things as worldly amusements, the theatre, dramatic moving pictures, dancing, card-playing, smoking. They argue that they do not regard these things as sins, though others may believe them to be. But surely if we are facing the question of getting such a great Gift as Christ as our Victory and very Life, these things are small matters to yield. But if they are not sins, are they “weights” in the Christian race? “Let us ... lay asideevery weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us” (Heb.12:1).
But, it may be objected, how can a Christian surrender? Does he not already belong to Christ? Ah, that is the sad tragedy of it. Will a man rob God? Yes, the Church of Christ is largely robbing him to-day of the only offering he caresfor—ourselvesas living sacrifices. We are indeed bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ, we are not our own, we belong to him. Haveyouacknowledged this ownership in every detail, not with your lips alone, but with your life, in its every action? That is the first requirement for Victory. And Victory will never be enjoyed until the surrender question is settled. An earnest young Christian woman was in defeat and distressbecause there was something she would not yield. She acknowledged it was pride, but she could not give it up.
“Whom do you belong to?” she was asked.
“Christ.”
“What price did he pay for you?”
“His own life.”
“But you are saying to him there is something you are holding back. What are you doing?”
“I suppose I am crucifying him afresh,” she answered, the tears coming.
“Yes, you are robbing him.”
But the struggle went on and she would not yield.
“Will you kneel down and just tell the Lord that you are robbing him, and that you intend to keep on robbing him?”
She shrank from such a thought, and she kneeled down and told her Lord that shewouldyield that one thing she was holding back, and that there was nothing that she was not willing to do that he wanted.
She arose with a radiant face, and as the days went on it developed that God did not want her to do the thing she was shrinking back from doing. A Christian may be kept out of victory because he says he would not be willing to go to the mission field, or send his sons to the mission field. Godmay not want him to go, but he can never have Victory as long as there is an unwillingness to do what Godmaywant him to do. For this is doubting God and his love.
But there are multitudes of Christians who are truly surrendered, holding nothing back, who do not have Victory. For the surrendered life is not necessarily the Victorious Life. Surrender isourpart. The supernatural work of Victory isGod’spart.God isdoing his part as soon as we yield ourselves, and we get the benefit of it when we believe that fact. This is Victory by faith. “Faith does nothing. Faith believes that God is doing it all.” Faith is just believing the word of God. Those marvelous promises, or rather “facts” of God’s Grace which have been quoted above can only be received by the Christian who is holding nothing back from God. Then all the rest is God’s work.
Is he faithful? We have surrendered. Is our part then to believe that God will give us Victory?No, that is not faith.“Victory’s final secret,” as Mr. Trumbull has put it, is to believe that Christisdoing his part, that his Graceissufficient, that wearefree from the law of sin, that weareunder Grace and not under law and that therefore sinis not having dominionover us, that heismeeting all our needs, but wearewalking in the Spirit. This is “letting God.”
Will you not “let go, and let God?” Now?
If you do, you can say with Paul, not only as a truth of your position in Christ, but as the blessed truth of your experience: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me” (Gal.2:20).
The Victorious Life is not a life free from temptation, but a life of victory over temptation. First Corinthians 10:13, with its “there is no temptation” is an absolute guarantee from God that victory over all temptations is possible; for he himself provides the way of escape. Jesus,—in his resurrection Life,—is the Way.
The Victorious Life is not a life free from the possibility of falling into sin. It is always possible at anymoment to sin, and as soon as our eyes get off Jesus faith slips, self is in control, and the result is sin.
The Victorious Life is not dependent on circumstances. Nothing is too hard for God, not even your hard circumstances. And let us always remember that the Victorious Life is “the Life that is Christ.” He is as able under one circumstance as under another.
The Victorious Life is not an attainment by growth. True growth in Grace really begins when we take the Grace of the Lord for complete victory over sin. Growth in Grace does not mean gradually getting rid of our sins, but it does mean growing from one degree of glory to another degree of glory as we behold the Lord and are changed into his image (2 Cor.3:18).
The Victorious Life gives no cause for boasting of spiritual attainment. Grace excludes boasting. It gives us no holiness of our own. The holiness and the victory are His, and the most mature saint in the walk of faith needs the same secret of Victory as the young Christian just entering into the Life. His strength is ever made perfect in weakness. My weakness is never made stronger, though as I learn more of the Bible teaching of what faith is I may get more and more established in acting by faith.
We continue in the Life of Victory as we entered it, by continuing the attitude of surrender and faith, moment by moment. It is the principle of “contact”; as long as the trolley keeps on the wire the electric power is supplied to run the car; as we keep looking unto Jesus there is Victory. If a slip of faith comes, if the trolley gets off the wire, and sin enters (which is always possible but never necessary), do not stop to argue with Satan about the sin or listen to his suggestion that you never had Victory: confess, receiveinstant forgiveness (1 John 1:9), look again in faith just as when you entered into the blessed “rest of faith.”
Does this message leave you with joy and gladness in your heart, because you know that this life is yours? Have you taken the Gift? Or are you like the young Christian who told an older woman that she had surrendered and believeda thousand times, and she was in hopeless darkness about it all.
“Well,” this older Christian said, “just stop doing that, or trying to do anything, and trust him to do it all.”
“I have done that a hundred times,” was the discouraged answer.
She had no will power to do anything, and she was hungry for Victory.
“If you can do nothing else, just lift up your heart to Christ.”
“I can’t. My heart is too heavy to lift up.”
“Well, one thing you can do, for it is just a physical act. You can lift up your eyes. Will you do that?”
The young woman promised that she would do that, and on the way home she kept her eyes directed upward as unto him. The next day she gave her testimony with a radiant face, rejoicing in the Lord: “I lifted up my eyes, and my heart went up with them.”
The Victorious Life is just as gloriously simple asthat—justlookingup—untoJesus—andKEEP ON LOOKING.