Welcome to the Victory Blog

This past weekend, I was excited to have my wife and co-pastor, Colleen, speak in our services. The Lord put a powerful word in her heart, and many people were encouraged. Here is some of what she said:

There is a real battle going on in our culture, everywhere you look, life and death are battling. When you get up in the morning, are you prepared, or are you worried about what’s in store? God wants us to be ready to face anything and everything that comes our way. In order to do that, we have to be ready. We have to put on the armor and take up the weapons that God has given us.

In Ephesians 6:15, Paul urged the believers in Ephesus (and us) to have their “…feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace…” His description would have brought the footwear of the Roman soldiers immediately to the mind of his readers.

This footwear was an essential part of the soldiers’ armor, used both defensively and offensively. It included greaves, which protected the soldiers’ shins when traversing difficult terrain, as well as in battle. The shoes, with spikes up to three inches long, helped keep a sure footing and would inflict a lot of damage on enemies trampled underfoot. God’s peace functions much the same way in our lives. It protects us, keeps us up on our feet, helps maintain a firm footing and keeps our Enemy under our feet! (See Psalm 108:13; Romans 16:20.)

God gives us His peace so that we will stand confident and resolute on the truths in His Word and experience the reality of His promises in our lives. God is such a lover and such a giver, everything He does is so that we can experience His promise. Peace is central to that so Jesus left His peace to us as an inheritance (John 14:27 NKJ). He left us peace with God, having reconciled our consciences to Him, freeing us from guilt and condemnation.

Jesus also left us the peace of God. Wouldn’t you like to have a week where you weren’t troubled by the news or stressed out at work; where you didn’t fight with your spouse or have difficulty sleeping through the night? You can, through this peace. This is no passive peace. It’s powerful and aggressive. It’s a powerful weapon against all fear, anxiety, worry, guilt and shame. It’s the same peace that Jesus had as He stood before Pilate knowing He would soon be brutally beaten and crucified.

Now, get this: Although you might feel like your war is to get a job, save your marriage or keep your house, that’s not your fight! The real fight is for your very soul. Satan wants to destroy you. He wants to keep your focus on your circumstances and off of God. He knows that if we learn to let God’s peace guard our souls, then we will also enjoy success in relationships, professions and all other vital areas of life. He will try to distract us or deceive us into believing that somehow we don’t qualify for God’s promises. But, if we want to keep God’s peace operational in our lives, then we must not believe the devil’s lies. We must keep our focus on God, believe the truth of His Word and stop disqualifying ourselves from getting helped.

Don’t let the devil have his way any longer in your life. Turn to the Father and receive the peace the He has given us in Jesus. Bind it tightly to your feet, as it were, and keep your focus on Him. Trust Him. There is nothing that we need to fear or worry about. God is much bigger! Stand strong in God’s peace and you will have the victory in this War of the Worlds!

(Watch or listen to the entire message online here.)

When you read the Bible and look around at life, it is very obvious that there is a war going on – a spiritual war. It is actually a war for our souls. If we’re not aware of this war and prepared for it, we will become casualties of this war. That is NOT what God wants. No, He wants us to STAND strong in the authority that He has given us in Christ, empowering us to overcome the devil and walk in victory.

In order for that to happen, we must first be aware that there is a war. Then we need to arm ourselves for that war. And then, having done all this, we must stand. So how do we arm ourselves for this war? According to Paul in Ephesians 6, we must start with the Belt of Truth, as we talked about last week. Then, we need to put on the Breastplate of Righteousness. What is righteousness? It is a state of being where you are in right standing with God, where God now sees you through the blood of Jesus instead of your sinful past.

The Bible is very clear, sin should not rule over us. We can walk in victory over sin because of Christ. A lot of people are living under condemnation, in sin and under the curse. If that describes your life, then you need to know that God came as a man, Jesus, to set us free from that bondage. He took our sins upon himself, died, defeated Satan, rose again and then handed that authority over to us. He died so that we could be MORE than conquerors. We may not go the rest of our lives without sinning, but we do not have to be ruled or controlled by it any longer!

Now, in ourselves, we can do nothing. In Christ, however, we can do all things! Through Him, we can walk in authority over Satan, so that he is not up on our shoulders whispering lies into our ears, but under our feet! When we do sin, we have three choices. We can either:

1. Continue sinning, which leads to iniquities, which causes our conscience to become seared and we start to think that what we’re doing is okay, and this creates demonic strongholds in our lives.
2. We can try to hide our sins and live in guilt and condemnation.
3. Or, we can confess our sins, bring them into the light, and then God will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, empowering us to live free and victorious.

Clearly, option three is the best, but this doesn’t come without a fight. Satan wages spiritual war against us to keep us from making that choice. That’s why we must understand three vital of spiritual warfare, all of which have to be working together for any them to work:

1. Grace – God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves – only comes through:
2. Faith – this the switch that draws God’s grace towards us
3. Righteousness – in order to believe God (Faith), and so receive His Grace, we have to have a righteousness consciousness. That is, we have to see ourselves how God sees us – through Christ and His righteousness, not through our sin. We cannot believe or receive God’s grace with a sin consciousness.

It is when these things are working together in our lives, that we will recognize Satan has no authority over us; that we can walk in victory over our circumstances; and that we will experience God’s power. Do you want that? Then get that breastplate of righteousness on by bringing your sin out into the light and letting God cleanse you from all unrighteousness. It’s not about how bad you are, it’s all about how good Jesus is!

Right now, I want you to think about the things in your life that are keeping you from operating in righteousness – the things that are keeping you bound. God wants to forgive you and purify you and set you free from those things! He wants to give you your innocence back. That’s the wonder of God’s forgiveness and grace. If you’ve gotten caught up in the wiles and strategies of the devil, know that God wants to set you free today! Be aware that the enemy is going to try hard to keep you from experiencing that. Don’t listen to him! Come before the Father; bring your sins to light; receive His forgiveness, cleansing and freedom!

How many of you know that there’s a spiritual battle that’s been going on since the beginning of creation? So many people don’t realize this and they’re caught up in the battle. They’re living in defeat and don’t know how to overcome and walk in victory. Yet, God has given us wonderful things in His Word to guide us and to empower us to do just that. This is what I’m going to be talking about for the next several weeks.

We have an enemy. His name is Satan. He has a whole host of demons (i.e., fallen angels) that are at war against us and the kingdom of God. His primary weapon is deception, the world is full of Satan’s deceptions. Many people, even some of us, believe these deceptions. Now, while Satan and his demons are not behind everything that’s wrong or hard in our lives, they are definitely real and hard at work to steal, kill and destroy God’s people and creation. Thankfully, God has given us powerful weapons and armor that will both protect us from Satan’s attacks and empower us to do battle and win over him!

So what is this armor? Well, the Apostle Paul tells us all about it in Ephesians 6:10-18. There, you can see a description based on the armor of a first century Roman soldier. You see, when Paul was writing his letter to the believers in Ephesus, he was literally chained to his Roman guard. Everyone would have been familiar with the gear that soldiers wore. Thus, his description of the way the different parts of this “spiritual armor” worked would brilliantly come to life in the minds of his readers.

Paul started his description with the Belt of Truth. (Ephesians 6:14a) For a Roman soldier, the belt was the most important piece – all his weapons, his shield and his breastplate were connected to it. If it wasn’t worn properly in place, all the rest would not be in order. God’s truth is just like this. We need to be girded with truth. Everything else – our ability to stand, our protection from the attacks of the enemy, our ability to fight and win – depends on this. God’s Word is full of truths with which we need to “gird” ourselves. While there are too many to list here, there are three vital truths concerning spiritual warfare that we need to know:

1. Jesus came to restore kingdom authority in the earth. (See Luke 11:20-22; 1 Corinthians 15:22-25; Colossians 2:15)
2. Jesus delegated his authority to the church. The church has missed this for the most part. (Ephesians 1:22-23; Mark 16:17-18)
3. In warfare, you will have to remind yourself you are more than a conqueror. (1 Peter 4:12; Romans 8:35-39)

Beyond that, we must remember that we are at war. Our enemy is trying to steal from, kill and destroy us. If we want to stop walking in defeat and start experiencing victory in our lives, we have got to put on our armor. It starts with getting a hold of God’s truth and wrapping it tightly around ourselves. So, let me challenge you to immerse yourself in God’s Word and teaching about His truth. Listen to or watch this past weekend’s message. And don’t miss the remainder of this series as we learn about all the armor and weapons of the Spirit and how to win this War of the Worlds!

A few weeks ago, families at Victory World Church gathered in our V3 building for an evening of family fun, praise and worship called Elevate. During normal services here at Victory, children are in the various classes provided by the Children’s Ministry while their parents attend service. Elevate, hosted by Pastor Randal McNeill, Family Ministries and VicKids Children’s Ministry, provided an opportunity for families to worship together for the first time this year.

The evening started with games for the families to play. First, the moms were put to test by participating in a hula-hoop competition. Two more rounds of hula-hoop competition involving children and a dad followed it. Next was a real treat with the dads squaring off in a dance competition. One of the dads did a ground crawl and brought back some moves from back in the day. The third game was Are You Smarter than a VicKid?, in which parents took turns answering questions that varied from 1st to 5th grade topics. After the games, the Victory Vida Band led praise and worship, keeping everyone on their feet as the little ones danced around in bare feet or bounced to the beat of the music while sitting on their fathers’ shoulders.

Thereafter, Flatman & Bobbin entertained the whole family with a pre-recorded skit, in which they illustrated the tremendously positive ripple effects of encouragement on those around us. According to one of the characters, parents who were encouraged as children will also encourage their children, and this cycle of encouragement continues. While it was certainly entertaining, the message of the skit was powerful and set the tone for Pastor Randall’s message to the parents.

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After the Flatman and Bobbin video, the children were taken to their classes for age-relevant lessons while Pastor Randal delivered a thought-provoking message entitled, “Priming the Pump,” to the adults. (Click here to download a PDF of the notes.) Pastor Randal emphasized the importance of parents creating an atmosphere of encouragement and showing respect for their children. He also talked about speaking life into our children and the importance of children honoring their parents. Punctuating the message with humorous personal anecdotes, he also used a water hose and bucket to fully illustrate his point that as we fill, the flow continues to come forward.

At the close of his message, parents were given paper raindrops and asked to write something special about their children on them. The highlight of the evening came when the beaming children, carrying small silver buckets, filed back into the room met by standing and cheering parents who placed the raindrops into each child’s bucket. To seal the blessings that were presented to the children, each family was asked to gather in small groups for the parents to pray over their children, and the children to pray over their parents. That night, the children of Victory World Church were given a gift that is sure to continue to flow.

The evening was capped off with Pastor Randal bringing his family, including his parents who were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary, up on the stage. He then demonstrated the meaning of his message as each member of the family took turns blessing, encouraging and speaking words of love to one another. After Pastor Randall prayed over all the families represented, everyone was invited to celebrate with the McNeal’s by partaking in their anniversary cake.

This weekend, we had the pleasure of welcoming our friends, Troy and Penny Maxwell, pastors of our sister church, Freedom House Church, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Troy brought a word of encouragement and exhortation about our pursuit of God as we close out our One Prayer series. Here are a few points from this message that stood out to me:

• Your PURSUIT of God reveals your PASSION for Him.
• Our passion for God is stimulated when we pursue Him.
• Start climbing the mountain(s) in your life. Don’t stay down in the valley of doubt, fear, worry and paralysis.
• Sometimes, it seems like God plays tag with us. He comes up, touches us in some way and then backs up a bit to see if we’re going to chase after Him.
• Pursuing God is knowing Him. The journey IS the destination. The experience of the climb is what God wants for us.
• All through the Bible, God used mountains to do or reveal significant things in people’s lives. Why? Because the mountain is a place of solitude. It’s not crowded, like the valleys, with people who are just wishing and not doing.
• God wants us to get on the mountaintop so He can deal with us.
• In this moment in time, God is pulling us out of our distracting lives.
• Are you willing to do what it takes to get to the top of the mountain? It’s going to take a lot.
• As we scale the mountain, God reveals the sin in us – our hidden sin, the dark things that we haven’t told anyone about, the things that haunt us, the addictions that no one else knows about – so He can help us with it.

This was a good word, and there’s a lot more to it. So, let me encourage you to listen to or watch the entire message online. Also, I want to invite you to join me in accepting Troy’s challenge to climb the mountain, pursue God with all our hearts and never leave His presence. Won’t you come up and experience God…on the Mountain?

What do you get when you take a group of ladies, mix in love and support, and throw in a splash of Pastor Colleen’s word? You get ChickChat that’s what! On Friday, June 19th, the main lobby of Victory World Church was beautifully transformed into a sleek and sophisticated lounge when Pastor Colleen Rouse hosted another ChickChat. Laura Lee Moore has attended all but one ChickChat and when asked what she got out of attending, she replied, “Pastor Colleen’s wisdom is at our finger tips. The love and camaraderie with other ladies…it’s our time!” As the women mixed, mingled and enjoyed refreshments provided by the always-fantastic Victory Hospitality Team, the evening air was filled with the sounds of music and laughter, creating an atmosphere of warmth and friendship.

Benita Cochran, attending her second ChickChat, made the 70 mile round trip drive because of the bonding. “We leave church and go to our separate worlds. ChickChat allows us to get together as sisters. The testimonies let you see others are going through the same thing. It’s like a sisterhood.” Robin, who was attending for the second time described ChickChat as “up close and personal with Pastor Colleen. We can fellowship and go away feeling like you’ve been to the spa. We need each other. I look forward to hanging out with the girls.” As the sanctuary doors opened and the ladies headed inside to take their seats, Janet Bell and Vida Narh, both from Ghana, said they were excited to be attending ChickChat for the first time.

Once inside, we were treated to praise and worship before Pastor Colleen began her message on the importance of relationships. Having not ever attended a ChickChat before, I was not sure what to expect and after an emotionally draining week, all I wanted to do was sit back, quietly observe, and get some good notes for my article. As Pastor Colleen spoke about creating an infrastructure of peace and outlined the four things the enemy does to try and prevent this, I shifted in my seat. Was she talking to me? Trying my best to be nonchalant, I snuck a quick glance around the sanctuary and saw that every woman was not just listening to Pastor Colleen, but seemed to be hearing what she was saying.

As the evening progressed, she talked about how we give people power over us and how we should not sow seeds of discontent. She then explained what the Spirit of God does for us and I realized I was getting more than some notes for an article. Pastor Colleen delivered a message that was sprinkled with her usual sense of humor but was truthful, enlightening and thought provoking as she concluded her message with a powerful question: The average person will encounter 10,000 people in their lifetime. What kind of experience do we want to give those people?

After a time of prayer and a lively question and answer session, we headed back up to the lobby for an after party complete with an assortment of coffees and hors d’oeuvres. As flickering candles illuminated the small clusters of seating areas, the ladies gathered to talk and reflect on Pastor Colleen’s message. If you’ve been wondering what ChickChat is all about, Linda put it simply: “It ministers to women of all generations. No age gap.” ~ Karla Eyre

Click here to download a PDF of the notes from this ChickChat.

(Click any of the photos to see the entire gallery from this event.)

iCare About…
Reaching beyond myself to spread the gospel and help those in need around the world…

Hundreds of millions of men, women and children in places like Cambodia, China, India, Sudan and Myanmar are living in darkness without the light of the Gospel. War-torn, impoverished, oppressed, suffering, sick, hungry, thirsty…just a few of the words that describe them. They desperately need Jesus. But how can they experience God’s love and healing without someone to go and tell them? And how can they go and tell them without the support of a unified body of believers?

That’s what One Prayer is all about – uniting the energy and resources of the Body of Christ in answer to His prayer that we would be one.

This month, we’re dedicating our iCare giving toward the One Prayer Giving Initiative, joining more than one million believers around the globe who are uniting to make a difference.

In 2008, more than 660 churches were planted through One Prayer. (Click here to read some of the testimonies.) This year, your giving can help raise that number to over 1,000 in 2009!

July 11th and 12th is iCare weekend. Please prayerfully consider giving to help spread the Gospel around the world as we unite our giving with that of nearly 2,000 other churches worldwide.

Click here to make an online iCare donation.

When I was younger, I had put God in a box, as many people do. I limited Him to my perception and the wisdom of man, relegating His power to history. When faced with a church where God’s power was present and active, I couldn’t handle it and left the church. In reality, I was full of religion, and that was keeping me from the power of God.

I have since both learned and experienced that God is not just a God of history; He is powerful yesterday, today and forever! Yet, many of us have actually made an idol of human wisdom – putting it over the power of God. As a result, our lives are not being impacted by the power of the Holy Spirit. We’ve gotten so used to this that we’ve begun to believe that God no longer operates in power in our lives today.

How much of our faith is in the wisdom of men over the power of God? Many of us have heard teaching that God is powerful and that He operates in that power today. But, sometimes it’s hard to believe words. We need a demonstration of the power of God, as in signs, wonders and miracles. And God wants us to experience and even do those kinds of things. But that can’t happen if we don’t believe He can or will. Unfortunately, a lot of us don’t really trust God to work in our lives in this way. Rather, we typically trust all of our natural resources first before we even think of turning to God. What would it be like if we started putting our full faith and trust in God first, from the beginning?

Some of Jesus’ most powerful words are recorded in John 14:12, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my Father.” (NKJ) That’s right, Jesus said those who believe in Him (that’s us!) will do supernatural works as great as, and even greater than Jesus Himself!

I can hear you asking, “How are we going to do these works? How are we going to operate in the supernatural?” I can answer that in one word: Anointing. When we believe, we can receive the Holy Spirit, who will anoint us to do amazing things. Jesus promised the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and His power. We refer to this as the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit.” Now, you must understand the difference between the Spirit within us, bringing character and fruitfulness, which starts when we receive salvation; and the Spirit upon us, empowering us to share our faith, pray and speak supernaturally and operate in the gifts of the Spirit – that’s being baptized in the Holy Spirit. And, that’s how we can both experience God’s power and do things greater than Jesus did! Isn’t that the life you want to have?!

If you want to know more about it, I strongly recommend that you start by listening to or watching the message I gave during our services this past weekend. Then ask the Holy Spirit to come upon you and baptize you in His power. Go ahead, don’t hold back! Talk to your small group leader, or one of our pastors. They’ll be glad to pray with you and help you experience a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Then you will know without a doubt that God is…Power!