What Is Victory?

by Pastor Vinnie

Don’t sin! Don’t do it. Stop. Sin kills. Sin kills you. Sin kills others. Sin will even kill God. It put Jesus on the cross. Why would you want to keep doing that?

“…To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace.” Hebrews 6:6b NIV

What is that you say? Is stopping easier said than done?

I know you think that. I know you, maybe indirectly, have been taught that. I also know you are wrong. I am not saying you can gain instant perfection. Let’s leave perfection to Christ and His translation of you at His return.

“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” KJV

However, the fact that you’re not perfect, always growing, forever seeking to become more like the Savior is no excuse to be stalled, stuck, and living in defeat. Victory is not perfection. Victory is not sinlessness. Winning is not the absence of failure. Instead, it is the embracing of the success that Christ produces in you like fruit, growing in your spiritual life as you gradually keep walking with him.

“ The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV

Keep walking. Keep getting up. Keep refusing to stay down. Keep seeking His Spirit. Keep asking, pleading, and chasing after His Spirit no matter how badly you mess up and He will gradually, yet consistently, produce His Spirit’s fruit in you. Here is the thing to keep in mind, you likely won’t even see or notice it. This, too, is by design, so that your rising up out of the ashes of defeat will not be tripped up by your very typical, earth-bound, human pride. However, those around you will see it! Those who have daily and random contact with you will notice that there is something different about you. They will notice your joy, your inner sense of peace in crisis; they will see a gentleness inside you. They will be struck by your spirit of kindness, inner selfless goodness. They will be inspired by your off-the-charts self-control, not to mention your faithfulness both to doing right and to caring about them. They will see your love.  You, however, will only see how much further you still have to go to be as beautiful as your Savior.

“Those who become new creatures in Christ Jesus will bring forth the fruits of the Spirit… They will no longer fashion themselves according to the former lusts, but by the faith of the Son of God they will follow in His steps, reflect His character, and purify themselves even as He is pure. The things they once hated, they now love, and the things they once loved they hate. The proud and self-assertive become meek and lowly in heart. The vain and supercilious become serious and unobtrusive. The drunken become sober, and the profligate pure. The vain customs and fashions of the world are laid aside…The loveliness of the character of Christ will be seen in His followers. Love beautified and ennobled all His actions. Love is of God…The closer you come to Jesus, the more faulty you will appear in your own eyes; for your vision will be clearer, and your imperfections will be seen in broad and distinct contrast to His perfect nature. This is evidence that Satan’s delusions have lost their power; that the vivifying influence of the Spirit of God is arousing you.”[i]

You see it is easy to say, don’t sin. It is harder to do that. But you know what is easier than both of those things and works? Love works! It is true! Love works! Don’t think about how hard it is to stop sinning. Think about how sweet, and how joy-filled, how powerful, and how transforming LOVE IS! Don’t sin… Just love each other! It really is that simple. The act of not sinning merely is showing love, respect, and value to each other and the creator. LOVE is VICTORY!

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40 NIV

Dear Friends have Victory. Dear Friends, Love God and Love each other. Do this, and your Victory is being lived out in you and growing deeper and deeper all the more to the day of our Lord’s arrival and appearing in the clouds. You will seek out his Holy Spirit to teach you how to love.  Then, love, not perfectionism, will rise in your heart to be your new target. It will become less and less about how you will get to Heaven and more and more about how you can love others into the Kingdom. Slow and steady, is the race into eternity. Run it, one foot in front of the other, all the way to that glorious finish-line ahead of us all!

Reflect on these words (video below)

Resurrecting:

The head that once was crowned with thorns
Is crowned with glory now
The Savior knelt to wash our feet
Now at His feet, we bow.

The One who wore our sin and shame
Now robed in majesty
The radiance of perfect love
Now shines for all to see.

Your name, Your name
Is Victory
All praise will rise
To Christ, our king.

The fear that held us now gives way
To Him who is our peace
His final breath upon the cross
Is now alive in me.

Your name, Your name
Is Victory
All praise will rise
To Christ, our king.

By Your spirit, I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King is resurrecting me
In Your name, I come alive
To declare Your victory
The resurrected King is resurrecting me
By Your spirit, I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King is resurrecting me
In Your name, I come alive
To declare Your victory
The resurrected King is resurrecting me
By Your spirit, I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King is resurrecting me
In Your name, I come alive
To declare Your victory
The resurrected king is resurrecting me

He’s resurrecting me
Our God is good.

The tomb where soldiers watched in vain
Was borrowed for three days
His body there would not remain
Our God has robbed the grave
Our God has robbed the grave (yes He has, yes He has)

Your name, Your name
Is Victory
All praise will rise
To Christ, our king.

By Your spirit, I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King is resurrecting me
In Your name, I come alive
To declare Your victory
The resurrected King is resurrecting me
By Your spirit, I will rise
From the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King is resurrecting me
In Your name, I come alive[ii]

Related Articles:

Love Letters In The Sand

Seeking Sinking Simon

It’s A Beautiful Day

Footnotes:

[i] Collected thoughts from the book Steps to Christ, Chapter 7, “The Test of Discipleship,” by Ellen White.

[ii] Resurrecting: Elevation Worship. Songwriters: Christopher Brown / Wade Joye / Steven Furtick / Matthews Thabo Ntele / Mack Brock

Resurrecting lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

The post What Is Victory? appeared first on Simply Vinnie - Unpacking The Complicated.

Iconic Evil

Exploring Where Monsters Come From

by Pastor Vinnie

The Tate murders happened six months before I was born. So when I woke up on November 19, 2017, to hear that  Charles Manson had died, I realized, right away, the story about evil I had heard my entire life finally had an ending.

In high school, I read books about Charles Manson and “The Family.” The story of his evil loomed so large and grotesque, as a teenager I needed to understand how one man could exert so much dark power. Then, later, as a college freshman in Social Work, I wrote papers on Manson’s discombobulated childhood, early adult institutionalization in the criminal justice system, and ability to master psychological manipulation in group settings. Even more recently, as a pastor, I have used the iconically evil Charles Manson as an example of Jesus’ warning of cult leaders at the end of the age, “And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people.” (Matthew 24:11)

My point is, Charles Manson has been my generation’s go-to example of what cultic iconic evil is and looks like. I think the most frightening part of Charlie, to me, was how easy he made it seem to collect people up into a cultic frenzy and to provoke them to evil acts in the name of loyalty, by bathing them in insane narratives about him being the Christ or being Satan, or triggering a race war so that they could rule the world. Maybe, a lot of it was the counterculture and LSD, but however he did it, he was able to motivate people to do the unthinkable in his name.

Still, here is the thing about Manson, while he was “Iconic Evil,” at the end of the day icons exist to represent the sum of all meaning in their giving category of prosopopoeia, Manson is the image that first comes to mind when someone says, “cult leader” or “mass killer” or “human evil.”  Rightfully so, because his type of evil is both rare and petrifying; but is it really the greatest evil my generation has seen?

Iconic does not have to mean most evil. I read stories all the time about people I consider greatly evil like, mothers who drown their own children, fathers who shake their babies to death, and teachers who have sex with their minor students. Recently I read a horrible story about a mother and father who were both so consumed by drugs they overdosed together, leaving their baby to starve to death alone in the home[1], all because they loved a drug more than their own baby. Every day people assault, rape, murder, and hate, but we cling to icon images of evil because they allow us not to feel so badly about 1) the world around us, that we live in and 2) ourselves.

In a way, iconic evil is the way we scapegoat evil human nature by replacing it with iconic figures like Manson, Hitler, Stalin, or Osama bin Laden, and so forth. We do this so that we don’t have to cognitively resonate with just how evil and debase this whole world is. We can put all the blame on a few icons and as long as they are jailed or dead we can return to our spiritual opus of fantasy that we are all going to be alright now. After all, the purpose of the Icon of Evil is it is a safe place to put the blame and shame of sin so that I don’t have to admit my role in it.

Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent that God made. And the serpent accused God of lying. And ever since the world has gone to hell; and hell will literally become the final destination of all who put blame on icons rather than come to terms with the depths of the very nature of fallen mankind and the only solution.

A better explanation for Charlie Manson than the narratives we are currently hearing is found in the Holy Scriptures:

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) The bad news we are trying to escape when we put all the blame of evil on icons is best summed up in that verse with one word or 3 letters; “ALL”.

I want Manson to be what is wrong with the world because he is now dead! I want Hitler to be the evil of the world because I am not him! I want to pass the buck to … (fill in any person you currently hate or blame) because, then, I am not the problem. And as long as I prop up icons of evil they can be my new idols of reverse worship that step in and become my bogus backward atonement taking my blame and letting me avoid the awful tarrying truth, that I know with every fiber of my being to be true; I am part of the ALL!

I am sick. I am infected. I am a sinner. I am broken, twisted, bent, deformed, dysfunctional, and deathly problematic… I am short of the glory of God. I am evil by nature. I am Charlie.

Let us not fool ourselves with vain condensed childish slogans like, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” The reality really is, “There I am going, and my only hope to stop going is God’s great grace.” I have to own it. Yes, I am Charlie… even if I have not descended to his particular sins, I bear his condition and prognosis unless I undergo the only treatment known to man to eventually cure this fatal disease. The Apostle John put it this way, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). If I want the treatment I have to own the disease. You can’t rightfully expect a Doctor to treat you for a disease you don’t admit you have and even if he would, would you really be inclined to stay with the treatment plan?

Praise God! Praise God, I am forgiven! Praise God! Praise God I am purified of my sins! But that is only because I admit my disease, and allow “The Great Physician” to apply his blood to my wounds daily. I understand that icons are only idols of the self, that the self is spiritual suicide. If I am to be stopped from my destructive ways, if I am to be healed from my fatal disease, I must put down both icon and idol, admit the depths of my sin and shame, stop hiding from God, and let Him, daily, bind up my wounds with His stripes.

In 1972 Charles Manson escaped the death penalty due to a legal loophole in the system. But he could not, in the end, cheat death itself. I, however, don’t need to cheat death, Because Jesus died instead of me. My question is, did Jesus die for you? Because Jesus only died for sinners. Stop hiding in your icons of blame and excuses and rather be made whole by the confession of your condition in the office of the Great Physician. If Jesus is the cure, what prevents you from taking the treatment?

Footnotes:

[1] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/parents-overdose-baby-starves_us_58606d88e4b0eb586486bcec

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