Welcome to the Victory Blog

This weekend, I had the pleasure of letting my wife Colleen give the message in our services. As usual, she brought a great word that was full of life. So, in case you missed it, I’d like to summarize it here.

God has the same heart to heal us today as He did for all those people that Jesus healed in the Bible. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. God does not change. He was the Healer long ago and He is still the Healer today. Yet today, either because of ignorance or unbelief, people often miss out on receiving healing.

So, is God still healing today? Is Jesus really who He said we was? If we want to answer these questions, we should ask the person that they’re about. And, we’ll find His answers if we go to the right source – God’s Word. Isaiah 53:5 says, “By his stripes we are healed.” And, 1 Peter 2:24 says, “By his stripes we were healed.” Notice that it says “were healed” – as soon as God thinks something it’s as good as done. From God’s perspective everything that needed to be done by Him for us to be healed was completed in Jesus. The promise is intact.

What is needed now is our participation in order for the promise to be delivered. You see, just like the people in Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth, our doubts and unbelief cut us off from being able to receive. It’s almost like God needs our permission; He doesn’t force himself on anyone. Rather, He’s looking for us to trust Him. That is what opens the door of healing.

Now, if we want to keep the door open, there are two things we have to do: Sift and Stand. First, we have to sift, or filter out all our wrong beliefs and the lies that the enemy throws at us. Then, we have to stand on the truth of God’s Word The devil would love to close the door of healing in our lives, but if we learn how to take a stand, we can refuse him that opportunity.

Still, standing is not easy. There are a lot of things that contend against our healing such as our feelings, the facts, fear, failure or false information. In order to stand, we have to keep believing in God and what He says He accomplished in His Son. We must embrace truth and isolate ourselves from the lies that serve to undermine our faith. That’s why we have to keep God’s Word in front of us. It is the lens through which we must examine the validity of what we believe. It will tell us if what we’re thinking and expecting is right or wrong.

Because of that, we need to fall in love with it. What’s great is that as we do so, and as we find truth in it, we develop faith. Now, this is not just mental assent or agreement. Faith is when the truth connects with our spirits; when we have that “aha” moment; when, regardless of circumstances, we know that we know that God is our Healer.

To get to that place, God’s Word must become a part of us. How? Through meditation. I don’t mean some kind of crazy eastern meditation where you’re sitting there saying, “Ommmm,” or whatever. No, I’m talking about the definition of meditation: to revolve in the mind; to ponder; imagine; speak; utter. Meditating is not only thinking about something, but it is also engaging our mouths. When we start speaking what we believe, the revelation of His goodness becomes illuminated. Something amazing happens. We get the Word into us and that enables us to stand.

Now, this can work for us or against us depending on what we’re meditating about. So often we focus on and verbalize our feelings, circumstances, sicknesses, symptoms, etc., but that only takes us further down, deeper into sickness and doubt. On the other hand, if we will meditate on the truth of God’s Word, it will work out through us in the form of faith and move us toward healing. Through faith we give God permission to move in our life. It may not be instant, quite possibly it may be a process, but it is inevitable.

As you go through this process, I want you to be patient with yourself. You’ve had a lot of experiences. It takes time to let go of traditions, preconceived ideas or impressions left behind on our souls from disappointing experiences in the past. But, if you will continue to sift your beliefs and take a stand, you will come to the place where your spirit agrees with the Word and you’re convinced.

Then, if you want to receive healing, you must activate your faith. Receptivity involves tenacity not passivity! The devil wants to steal your healing. Are you going to let him take it, or go after what is yours and take it back? Sure, you can be lying in bed, you can have a disease, but it doesn’t have to have you! Don’t just let the enemy run over you. Stand. Take up the armor of God (see Eph. 6). Activate your faith. And take what God has promised you.

God wants you to have the experience of healing. Why? Because after you’ve had to stand for it, gone through the process, and then received healing, you’ll want to go out and tell others about it and share the experience with them. And that is just what God wants you to do. He wants all of us to live life with the Door of Healing wide open!

How many of us truly live in the place of rest? Do you daily live in peace, without worrying or being anxious about anything? Most people don’t. Yet rest is an essential element of life with God. In fact, it is a promise that He has given us. As the writer of Hebrews says, “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.” (Hebrews 4:9)

Now, there are usually two ways people interpret this Scripture. Some people believe this passage is referring to someday in Heaven. But I think it’s talking about living in the place of entire dependence on God, daily trusting in Him for everything – money, health, the future, everything.

If we’re honest with ourselves, most of us have to admit that we don’t live this way. We don’t really trust God fully and completely, even though we say we do, and sometimes even think we do. Whenever life gets hard and difficult things happen, we start to worry and try to take back control rather than trusting God. This is the opposite of resting. It is stressing, and it doesn’t accomplish anything. Jesus said, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Obviously, no one can, yet we still worry – about our life, kids, health, etc. In fact, some experts say that most of us spend half our lives worrying … about things that never happen! And, we’re worrying ourselves sick, literally. Studies have shown that the majority of illnesses have stress (or the inability to deal with stress) at their root.

To live the abundant life God promised, we have to get to the place of rest. But, we have the tendency to believe the negative (all the bad things that might happen – the what if’s) before we believe the positive (that God loves us, cares for us, and will never leave us or forsake us). This is all part of the curse. You see, God had a simple plan for man:

1. Live in dominion over creation – the plants, animals, etc.
2. Be a good steward. He basically said to Adam and Eve, “Take care of this garden and you will always have plenty, all your needs will be met.”
3. Fellowship with Him. God wants us to have a daily, life-giving relationship with Himself.
4. Rest in Him. That is, trust that He is able to take care of every situation; no matter how hard it is, or what the devil throws at us. God can and will take care of us.

That was it. But, Adam and Eve didn’t follow God’s plan. They chose their own way and so came under a curse. Out of that curse a new religion was born: Humanism. This is the belief that “if it’s going to happen, it’s up to me,” or “If you’re going to get to God – you’re going to have to work to get there. You have to talk, act, pray and/or worship in a certain way or God won’t love you,” or that “God helps those who help themselves.” None of these beliefs are biblical, yet it seems we all have a bit of humanism in us. Whenever we get stressed, we start trying to do things ourselves. We try to make sure things go the way we think they should go. We take control. Somewhere along the way, we’ve bought into the humanistic lie that we are in control. But in reality, when we do this, we take our hands out of God’s hands and set ourselves up in His place. But we are not God. We have no creative power in and of ourselves. And we will never find peace and rest outside of His hands.

And that’s why Jesus came: to teach us how to put and keep every part of our lives back into God’s hands; to trust the Father completely; to live as He did – doing only what He saw His Father doing. Jesus invites us to give up the atheism of worry and to get out from under the weight of life’s circumstances. He says, “Come up under me and let me carry the weight for you – that of your kids, your finances, your future, everything – that’s what I came to do – to set you free from worry.”

Read the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…” When you have this perspective of God, you get what it’s all about – you have entered rest. Let me ask you; is there a want in your life? Are you living with a lot of wanting? If so, you are not living with the Lord as your shepherd. When the Lord is your shepherd you will not want. Now, that doesn’t mean you’ll have everything you want and nothing will go wrong. But, it does mean that in the midst of life, even during struggles, you’ll have a sense of contentment and peace, trusting that no matter what God is in control, that He is loving, and that He will accomplish His good purposes.

So, it boils down to this: will we continue trying to control our lives by ourselves, or will we start trusting God and turn control over to Him? God is inviting us to leave fear, worry and anxiety. He wants to set us free from the addictions to drugs, alcohol, sex, approval or other coping mechanisms that we use to calm our nerves or help us feel like we can get through life. All we have to do is come to Him and surrender our lives, our future and our control to Him. Yes, it can be a real struggle – we don’t like being out of control. But God will help us and take care of us if we’ll just surrender and enter the Door of Rest.

Have you ever asked yourself the questions, “Why am I alive?” or “What it my purpose?” If you think about it, these are kind of hard questions to answer. Most people never really think about purpose, and they don’t ever really answer these questions.

In his book, The Pursuit of Purpose, Myles Munroe says, “The greatest tragedy in life is not death, but life without reason. It is dangerous to be alive and not know why you were given life.” That’s so true isn’t it? At some point, because we didn’t know why we were given life, most of us just started doing life without any sense of direction or purpose. And, as a result, we started making a real mess of our lives and those of others.

But God created us with a purpose. Paul writes, “Long before He laid down earth’s foundations, [God] had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by His love.”(Eph.1:4, The Message) Simply put, the reason you’re alive is: God is love and you are an object of His love – He created you in order to love you.

Yet, so many people miss God’s purpose for their lives because they reject His love. They just don’t have an understanding about the depth and nature of God’s love. Instead, they search for love in other things – other people, sex, drugs, work, etc. That is just what Satan wants. He works to separate us from God’s love and His purposes for our lives. The devil’s number one tactic is to get us to doubt God’s love for us. So, when bad things happen, Satan suggests that we ask, “Why did You do this to me, God?” as if God Himself was causing evil. But God is not evil and cannot do evil. He is love. And although He does allow us to go through difficulty, He does so in love, knowing that He will turn all things to good. And He doesn’t just let us go through difficulty alone; He loves us through the difficulty.

People have such a tendency to think negatively about God – that He is disappointed with us or mad at us – but it’s simply not true. The Bible says that God loves us in spite of our faults, in the midst of our faults. No matter what happens, or what we do, He never stops loving us. It is in recognizing this – that God’s love is unconditional and secure – that we began to turn to Him in trust, which then causes us to make decisions that are in accord with His purpose. So, in order to find and walk in your purpose, you have to understand that God loves you, and trust that He has a better plan for your life than you do – a plan that involves something for you to do in this life that only you can do.

“So,” you ask, “how can I find out what that is?” The answer is this: “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had His eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose He is working out in everything and everyone.” (Eph.1:11-12, The Message, emphasis added) Your purpose can only be found in Christ, your Creator. You will never find your purpose outside of Him. You will not find it if you look to any other thing, person, philosophy or religion.

Practically, the process of finding your purpose begins with reading and meditating on God’s Word. You will never find your purpose in novels, self-help books, television, etc. You’ve got to feed your spirit in God’s Word. You also need to be in His presence, and that means prayer. As you pray, remember that prayer is a two-way conversation, not a one-way monologue. Don’t just tell God everything you need and want, but ask Him questions, and then spend time listening! Then, as He begins to speak to you through His Word and in your spirit, act on what He tells you to do. When you do so, you can be assured that you are walking in your true purpose. And that is where power, life and blessing are found.

Now, isn’t that the kind of life you want – one that is full of significance and purpose? Then I encourage you to focus on God’s love, go through the process of discovery, and walk through the Door of Purpose!

We were excited to receive a newsletter from Pastor Mark in India and find that the children of our Victory Children’s Home are doing exceptionally well; winning awards and bringing recognition to the school through their academic performance.

It’s always inspiring and amazing to see what God can do to multiply our efforts. The impacts upon these children’s lives and the community around them will not be truly seen until eternity. God has taken the faithful giving of our church and will multiply it for generations to come.

Thanks again, Victory, for your generous giving and love for the nations.

Here’s the snapshot from Pastor Mark’s newsletter:

You can also use the link below to visit the Rays of Peace Ministries website to see some photos of the children enjoying a day at a nearby Amusement Park.

Day out at Wonder-La

Dear Victory Family,

I want to give you a report of the wells we have been able to drill because of your generosity. The first well was drilled at Rays of Peace Church premises. We drilled 600 feet deep and tapped into clean drinking water. The drilling people told us that this water is sufficient for the seven-story building that we are believing for God to enable us to construct in the future. (We already have approval from the government to do so.)

The second well was drilled at Victory Children’s Home (Rays of Peace Orphanage). The well is 350 feet deep and we are blessed with clean water. We have now built a cistern to store the water. We use it for the orphanage and to bless the people of our community. The drilling people told us that the water which we got from this well is sufficient to irrigate 10 acres of land for growing crops, etc.

The third well has now been drilled at the Precious Children Home (the first Orphanage of Rays of Peace). We drilled 250 feet and instead of putting in a pump and pipes, we have installed an overhead tank which provides running water for the orphanage, office and another building.

With the funds we received through iCare and the Advent Conspiracy, we will soon drill one more well in another village where we have our branch church. And, as the Lord provides the funds, we have also planned to drill five more wells in different villages where the people are desperate for drinking water. Thank you, Victory World Church, for giving so generously towards our water project in India.

In His Service,

Pastor Mark Jayakumar
Rays of Peace Ministries

Ever feel like your life is like a game show? You wonder, “Should I chose door number one or door number two?” What about when one of the choices looks easy and one looks hard – like a door with a bunch of locks on it? How can we know we’re making the right choice?

In our day and age, we are surrounded by choices. Not too long ago, if you wanted coffee, you could choose between coffee or…..coffee. Now, you go into a place like Starbucks and you have literally hundreds of combinations to choose from: tall (which for some reason is small), grande, venti, single, double, triple, cappuccino, macchiato, Americano, mocha, etc. The choices are endless. The average supermarket has 36,000 individual items to choose from – which is why I walk out with so many things I don’t need. Revlon has 156 different shades of lipstick.

We are completely bombarded with choices every single day – some easy, some hard. Sometimes the difficult choice is the right one. “Do I go in early and work hard to make it to my son’s baseball game tomorrow or break one more promise?” “Do I take that second look at the girl at work or keep my eyes pure?”

The choices we make now have consequences – both big and small. Too often we go through the easy door. Making the wrong choices results in things like debt, messing up sexually, abortion, going to prison, HIV. Making the right choices, on the other hand, will both benefit us and positively impact many others. Also, God is honored in this world as we make good, right, honest choices. In order to make do this, we need wisdom.

So, how do we get wise? Start by looking at the life of Jesus. Throughout his life, He asked Himself four questions that enabled Him to make amazingly wise choices. For instance, after spending 40 days in the wilderness fasting and praying, Satan showed up and tested Jesus – sort of a multiple choice test. Jesus’ response to each of the devil’s temptations was, “It is written…” Satan tried to get Jesus to take the easy door, but Jesus knew the Word.

Whenever a choice is presented to us in life, the first question we should ask about it is, “Is it written?” We can’t make good choices if we don’t know the Word of God. The Word of God is the will of God. If you want to make Godly choices, you have to get the Word inside of you.

Now, there are a lot of things that just aren’t specifically addressed in scripture. When that’s the case, the next question we have to ask is, “Is it love?”  We need to evaluate every choice on the basis of love. Jesus said that the world will know that we are His disciples by the way we love each other. What does that look like? 1 Corinthians 13 is an excellent description. Among other things, it says that love is patient, not self-seeking and not easily angered. So, if one of the choices isn’t love, don’t go though that door.

If the issue is still kind of grey after asking the first two questions, then ask: “Is it on the agenda?” God has a plan, a purpose, a hope and a future for every person, family, relationship, city and nation. Jesus knew God’s agenda for His life was to seek and save that which was lost. If we’re going to follow Him, we need to know God’s agenda for our lives, just as Jesus knew His and evaluated His decisions by that.

So, what is God’s agenda for your life? If you’re not sure yet, or if you don’t have anything more specific, you can fall back on this one from Mark 16: “Go into all the world preach the good news…” The cool thing is that after that, it says that all these miraculous signs will accompany you. That means, when we are walking in this calling, the power of God goes with us.

Finally, if the choice still isn’t clear, ask “What does God have to say about it?” That means we have to pray about the choice, and listen. We have to keep our spirits open to hear His voice. Look at the example of Paul. Acts 16:6-10 describes him and his companions going from one place to another because they were prevented by the Holy Spirit from taking the gospel to Asia, and then Bythinia. Then, after heading to Troas, Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia begging him to come over there. That is where God wanted them to go.

This passage is so cool. It shows me that Paul had no idea what he was doing. It really seems like he had no clue where they were supposed to go. But, he was listening. In every choice we make, it is absolutely vital to keep our eyes and ears on God. The thing is, we just can’t see down the road, past the doors of decision. If we could only see clearly what lay on the other side of our choices, they would be so much easier to make. But we can’t. There is Someone, however, who can – His name is Jehovah.

So many people refuse God’s help. They don’t know or don’t believe that He can see what they can’t. They insist on doing things themselves. They’re just like my little boy insisting on pushing his stroller even though he can’t see over the handle and refusing to let me keep even one hand on it to help. No, just like him, they have to run into a few curbs and smash their faces a few times before realizing they need to ask for help. That’s the key: we need to ask God for help. We need His hand on our life. He can see what we can’t.

God has laid out a plan for our lives, but it isn’t usually through the easy door. Choosing the Door of Wisdom isn’t easy. But, when we stop and evaluate the choices life brings us by asking these four questions, the result is godly wisdom. And that makes for an amazing life!

My search for God began as a search for truth. I talked with a number of people about all sorts of topics. I was really confused. I came to the place that I was desperate for truth, and that brought me to Christ. Yet, there are a lot of people today who don’t seem to be seeking truth. In fact, one of the most startling phenomena in our day is the rapid departure from the truth, or absolute truth. A new survey just released last week revealed that a surprising 57% of the evangelical church, and 70% of all church goers, now believe that many religions lead to eternal life. More than half of those who are considered to be born-again Christians have taken up the mantra of the day: tolerance.

What is tolerance? Well, by definition it basically means that if someone believes differently than me, I can live with them and not kill or abuse them in some way because of that difference of belief – I can tolerate them. According to this definition, we can and should be tolerant. However, in our culture tolerance has now been redefined to mean agreement with or acceptance of differing opinions as equally valid or true.

It seems that many people in America today, even within the church, are repeating Pilate’s question to Jesus, “What is truth?” And unfortunately, if that survey is true, there appear to be many within the church today that simply do not know the truth. You see, within the last few decades, a new way of looking at things, a new paradigm, has arisen in our culture called postmodernism. It holds that truth is relative, not absolute, so everyone’s opinion is valid and, therefore, should be tolerated. Consequently, religion in general and Christianity in particular (which claims to be more than just a truth), has become unwelcome in our culture.

Yet every human being in the world is born with an inherent need to answer four major questions about life:

1. Where did I come from, or what is our origin?
2. Why am I here, or what is the meaning of life?
3. What defines morality, or what’s right and wrong?
4. What is my destiny?

The answers to these questions can only be found in Scripture – our souls are not satisfied with mere opinions. Whether we know it or not, we need to know the truth, the absolute truth, God’s Truth. Deep down inside, we yearn to walk through the Door of Truth.

In order to do so, there is a process that we have to go through. First, in order to open the door, we have to trust in Jesus as the only way in. We cannot get in through our opinions, our goodness, or our religion. In John 14:5-6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Emphasis mine, NKJ) Notice Jesus didn’t say that He was one of many ways. There are many people today who say otherwise, but in so doing, they are in essence calling Jesus a liar. They have closed the Door of Truth. The fact of the matter is that you cannot ever really understand truth until you open the door to Jesus.

The next step in the process is to believe that the Bible is the truth. In John 17:17, Jesus says to His Father, “Your word is truth.” Any sincere truth seeker who studies the Bible will find it to be the most accurate and historically supported piece of ancient literature that we have. Now, when you decide that this book was given by God, and is truth, then you have to decide to submit to it. Everything we do, think or say should agree with the Truth. Be warned, God’s Word says that in the last days many people will fall away because they never decided that Jesus is the door and God’s Word is truth. Will you decide that God’s Word is the truth, or your feelings and desires?

Finally, we will experience the power of truth when we act on the Word instead of just hearing it. When we do the Word, it works. What does that mean? Well, love your enemies; bless those who curse you; pray for those who use you; etc. Don’t fall into Satan’s trap of getting focused on your rights and getting all offended at others. That’s just what our enemy wants. He knows that we have no power when we are in a place of disagreement. Remember, when we came to Jesus, we gave up our rights. That means we have to walk in constant forgiveness, no matter how impossible it seems. We can do it. Once we act on the Word our lives change.

Friends, when we decide to go through the process of trusting in Jesus, believing that His Word is truth and then acting on it, we walk through the Door of Truth. That’s where things begin to work, where the blessing and new life begin to flow. So today, I pray that you will open up your heart to God, trust in Jesus, believe and act on His Word and so, walk through the Door of Truth.