Welcome to the Victory Blog

You know how you have to take and pass tests in school in order to keep moving forward from grade to grade? Well, the rest of life is just like that; we have to keep passing tests in order to keep moving forward. We really don’t know how much we’re learning until we take the test. If we don’t pass the test of life, we just have to keep doing it over and over again until we do.

So, the question is, are we going to move forward in the calling of God? God’s called every one of us to do something. If we’re going to keep moving forward, we’re going to have to get through some tests in life…we have to learn how to deal with them. In fact, there are three main areas of our lives that we will be tested on and have to pass in order to keep moving forward:

1. Purity Test – God has called us to live a life of purity. Holiness. It is not easy to live holy…inevitably, we’re going to be tempted in our flesh – lust of the flesh. Many of us, before we gave our hearts to Christ, spent a lot of time and energy feeding the lust of our flesh. And, even after accepting Christ, our flesh will fight hard to keep getting fed. Now, our bodies have three primary natural desires: food, sex and amusement/entertainment. God put these desires in us, but he also set up boundaries to keep us from being ruled by these desires. Most people are ruled by at least one of these…they may overcome one or two, but fall into the other. These things, if they rule us, will keep us from moving forward…even cause us to fall backwards. How do we gain victory over these things and keep moving forward? Go after God, fasting and prayer, turn our hunger towards him and be filled by him. If we’re going to keep moving forward, we’ve got to be hungry for God.
2. Possession Test – “Mammon” has tremendous power and rules over people’s lives until they learn how to overcome these things. In order to move forward, we have to pass this test. If our goal is to get rich for ourselves, we’re setting ourselves up for misery. We have to recognize that EVERYTHING belongs to God…we have to put him first. If our heart is all about things, we’ve fallen for another god and will not move forward. If we’re going to rule over money, we have to learn that it doesn’t belong to us – we have to do what God wants us to do with it. We have to be good stewards. It starts with tithing…giving God the first 10% and trusting Him to take care of all your needs with the rest. Whose kingdom are we building here on earth?
3. Pride Test – Whenever I get before the Lord and start examining myself, there’s not a day goes by that I don’t find that I have pride issues to deal with. I think most of us are that way. The number one virtue that we should be pursuing as Christians is humility. With pride, we are guaranteed to fall. If we humble ourselves, God will lift us up. If you want to know what humility looks like, read the Gospels; Jesus gives us the best picture of humility. We should ask ourselves these questions:
   • Do I esteem others better than myself?
   • Do I have a servant leader mentality?
   • Am I overly concerned about my reputation?
   • How much am I losing myself for the sake of others?

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