Victory is in Fact an Option

         After years of being an Apple hater I have an iPhone…and I love it. I use it all the time. It is all at once an extraordinary tool for getting my work done and the largest agent of distraction that exists. You have to take the good with the bad. I have several apps that I use to kill time in the doctor’s office waiting room, while I’m getting my car washed, or sitting in deadlock traffic. It’s great for that.

I was using an app the other day and, like so many of them do, it popped up an advertisement for another app offered by the same company. This is not unusual. I make a game out of it: “How Fast Can I Close this Ad?” Only this one was different. It had two options “Try It Free!” and “Dismiss.” The problem was “Dismiss” was grayed out as in you couldn’t select it. It was disabled and I was doomed to stare at this app and not get back to my “Temple Run” marathon. (Try it out, awesome game). I honestly stared at it for a minute…”What do I do? I guess I’m just stuck with this ad…no more app for me.” In frustration I tapped the “Dismiss” button any way…and the app went away.

THOSE DIRTY (brilliant) LIARS! I could dismiss the app all along, but because I knew that grayed out buttons in the computer world are just a giant tease to taunt you and tell you that the computer COULD do what you want it to, but it WON’T just to stick it to the man…I just stared at the screen. I thought I was stuck with it. This was brilliant by the developers of this advertisement. They preyed on my perception that there are just certain things that aren’t an option. In this case grayed out buttons.

            Sometimes, as we walk out our faith in Christ we sin. It happens. We are sinners saved by grace. We will slip up. I don’t want to talk about slip ups today. I want to talk about things that are habitual. What I really want to talk about is iniquity, but that’s another blog. To boil this down to its most concentrated we need to talk about the sins that you just can’t seem to get away from. For some of us this means something we struggled with when we became new believers. Something from our old life followed us into our new one and it took hours of praying, repenting, and seeking God’s face to turn a corner on it. For some of us it’s something that we slipped into after we met Jesus because we have an affinity for worldly things. This familiarity led to comfort which led to us being slaves to something of our earthly nature.

            In both of these cases we have addressed this sin, either on our own between us and God or we’ve sought outside help from a stronger believer. Yet, we find this thing creeping up on us again. We feel like we just can’t slip it. It’s like a bad scene from a horror movie, every corner we turn, “Its right behind you! Understand that the Enemy wants you to feel this way. Check out what Paul writes about sin and its control on us:

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
Romans 6:14-18

Feel Like Victory's Not an Option?

            You see, we are free from sin. God has delivered us and his matchless grace covers everything we repent of and seek forgiveness for, but the Enemy has us convinced that victory is just not an option. He wants us to be a pessimistic University of Georgia fan watching the Georgia/Florida game. He wants us to believe that even if we aren’t losing right now that we will find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He wants you to feel like you’re stuck with that sin in your life just like I felt like I was stuck with that advertisement. Satan is a DIRTY (brilliant) LIAR. Jesus said in John chapter 8 that when Satan lies he, “Speaks his native language.” From the very beginning he has been a liar. Check him out in the garden. His first recorded words are lies! It’s what he does best.

            If you’re in a place where you feel like your only choices are “Defeat” or “Eventual Defeat” I hope you will remember that the Devil is a liar. That you have another option: Victory.

“…we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,  neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37b-39