Welcome to the Victory Blog

Any level of suffering is a preparation time that builds us up on the inside. But while God is a compassionate Father, He still has high expectations of us even when we’re at what feels to be our lowest point.

In times of tragedy, devastation or challenges that seem big enough to take us down, God calls us to live in strength, not weakness. Why? Because He has given us the means to reign over these circumstances. He has given us strengthening grace.

But just how do we get that strength to take root down inside of us so we can live it all the time, especially in the middle of hard suffering? How do we get strong enough to settle on the truth that His grace is sufficient, no matter what we’re going through?

This weekend I talked about the keys to receiving strengthening grace when we are tempted, tired and in trouble. Click here to get the message that breaks down each area and begin experiencing first-hand the reality of Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

We joined Victory in June 2009 and soon after saw the announcement for upcoming Crown financial classes.  I registered us for this class because even though I have good credit and managed to pay the family bills on time and even pay off some debt ahead of schedule, my husband and I were not on the same page as it related to finances (to the point of little to no communication about the budget). We needed a jolt to remove this stronghold in our lives.

After Crown, we began immediately and aggressively targeting our debt (which was well over $100,000, with at least $100,000 owed on student loans). We began working towards a four-year plan, but wanted to share what we learned with others.  When the opportunity came to join the Crown ministry, we did so as budget coaches and now will be facilitating our 2nd class beginning next month.

We’ve applied contentment (Philippians 4:11-13), accountability, and honesty to our lives. Our interactions as a married couple have improved dramatically and in the past two years, we have paid $30,000 in debt. We are encouraged through our Crown team members, students and extended VWC family. While there are still struggles in our lives, we are so thankful for the billboard on I-85S that piqued our interest and brought us into this wonderful family we call VWC.

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We want to hear about what God has done in and through you at Victory. Whether long or short, complex or simple, your story is worth hearing, and there are others who need to hear it. Won’t you please consider sharing your story with us? If you’re willing to do so, please go to our homepage, victoryatl.com and click the Share Your Story quicklink, write your story, upload a nice photo (if you can) and click submit. It’s that simple. Now, don’t be shy. God’s given you a story for a reason! Share it today!

Many who follow Christ aren’t totally convinced about living holy.  It took me some time to wrap my brain around it. When I was young in the faith, I thought it was impossible. How in the world does somebody live without sin? I figured it out later when I began to really understand sanctifying grace.

Sanctification is a part of the grace message that often gets left out. But I want to set the record straight. No, you can’t live your entire life without sinning. But you can live a life where you don’t sin very much. Sanctifying grace makes that happen. It empowers us to overcome or resist sin — live holy. The key is that it empowers us to resist sin. We could never do it on our own.

There are so many ways we can start to live holy. We need to believe and accept the truth of God’s word and we also must live in the fear or reverence of God. But a very basic beginning for us is to embrace who we are in Christ. It sounds easy, but really living our lives according to who God says we are is something many of us just don’t do. We want to do it, we even plan to do it or set out doing it, but we often lose sight of it as we’re going along in life.

When you understand who you are, you live differently. Casual sin starts to fade from your life and you begin to live holy.

I believe so many of us want that. Pray and ask God to give you a desire and passion for Him that is stronger than your desire for whatever sin is in your life. Then start going hard after God’s sanctifying grace. I teach three points in this weekend’s message to help you in your pursuit. Listen, apply and be confident that your change is inevitable.

I live in Pennsylvania and have been here all of my life. I am now 32 years old and ever since I was 19, I’ve considered my parents to be my best friends, but they were first and foremost my parents. I grew up a Christian believing that relationship with God is better than religion. My dad read the bible every day, my mom did her devotion every day, and we attended church every Sunday.

I just finished watching the sermon that Pastor Colleen did on July 10th. I have a moment that I seized; it was small, but it had a big impact in my life. Eight years ago on May 10, 2003, I got married. Before my husband and I tied the knot, my mom-in-law asked if there was a chance that we could hold off the wedding for another year. Something was telling me not to postpone the wedding and to go ahead and do it in 2003 instead of 2004. So we got married. I took that moment and did what God was telling me to do.

We got back from our honeymoon on May 20^th, which was a Tuesday, and we saw my parents on Saturday May 24^th. My dad came home five minutes before we left, and again something told me to go and say hello and I love you to my dad before I left. I did what I felt God wanted me to do. Those three words I spoke to my dad were the last words he heard me say, because God called him home Sunday May 25^th. He had just come back from church and was not feeling good, so he lay down and was reading his bible when he had a heart attack.

I am so glad I listened to God when He gave me those moments—one for my dad to walk me down the aisle on my wedding day and two for me to tell him just how I felt about him. I thank God everyday for my parents. Growing up, my dad did not want a family because he did not want to end up hurting them because his parents got divorced and his brother and sisters got divorced. He is the only one that stayed married, and he died knowing that he made the right choice in seizing the moments that God gave him.

I visited your church on July 17th with my husband, my mom and my mom in-law, and now I am home in West Chester, PA happy to know that I can stay connected with my in-laws and the church they go to through this website. Thank you for the opportunity to share and be a part of your internet congregation.

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We want to hear about what God has done in and through you at Victory. Whether long or short, complex or simple, your story is worth hearing, and there are others who need to hear it. Won’t you please consider sharing your story with us? If you’re willing to do so, please go to our homepage, victoryatl.com and click the Share Your Story quicklink, write your story, upload a nice photo (if you can) and click submit. It’s that simple. Now, don’t be shy. God’s given you a story for a reason! Share it today!

What is grace, exactly?

Of course there isn’t one answer to that question, but if I could say one thing about it, I’d stress that it’s something you don’t want to be without! Grace is God’s operational power. It’s the reason for major transformation in our lives, but it’s also responsible for the small changes that we can so easily take for granted. Either way, it’s power – His love, protection, guidance, healing, forgiveness… — that we could never earn or gain on our own merit. I know the word “favor” is overused in church, but it’s so accurate. Grace is God’s favor, His generous, compassionate, totally voluntary kindness toward us when we don’t deserve it.

Whether you’re new to understanding grace or you’ve acknowledged God’s grace in your life for some time now, I want to challenge you to take it a step further and let grace take over! Let it reign. When you do, there’s an amazing freedom that comes with it. You begin to really live in the truths of God, which is something you can only do by grace.

I taught this weekend on 5 things you can expect to experience when Grace reigns in your life. You know you’re letting grace take over when you’re free from guilt and shame; you’re free to forgive; when you can love unconditionally; when you’re comfortable allowing others to be who they are; and, you’re free to be who God created you to be.

Click here to get more in-depth on each of these five points!

My name is Gerardo “Jerry” Quiroz and my lovely wife Iliana and I started the process of adoption back in 2009. God has blessed us with two amazing children starting with our oldest son David Israel Quiroz who is 2 ½ years old and our youngest daughter Hadassah Hope Quiroz who is now 14 months old.

Our daughter Hadassah was diagnosed with an uncommon and severe form of seizures called “West Syndrome,” which could cause permanent brain damage and there are not a lot options for treatment. She started to develop the seizures when she was 6 months old. At the beginning she was having seizures at least once a day and later on anywhere from 3 to 5 times a day. The day before Mother’s day Hadassah experienced two back to back seizures of an intense magnitude to the point where she stopped breathing. Thank God I was able to perform CPR on her and declare His Word over our daughter. After the longest minute of my life, by the grace of God, Hadassah started breathing again.

After an intense weekend, I went back to work here at VWC and on Tuesday morning our ministry led staff prayer with Psalm 23. We poured out our hearts to God saying, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You (God) are with me.” One of our Executive Pastors, Dave Nowak, said that when someone comes to the church and asks for prayer, the elders will lay hands and anoint him with oil, and the prayers of the saints will heal him or his family member. That is exactly what we did. He pulled a chair and about 100 staff members prayed for Hadassah and my family and anointed me with oil. The presence of God was so strong and powerful in that meeting that I believed with all of my heart that “for God all things are possible” and that Jesus had already healed my daughter.

Well, let me tell you as of today it has been 10 weeks and my daughter has not had any seizures since the day that we corporately prayed for her. So, we continue to declare that she is completely healed and this testimony is to give Jesus all the glory and praise, for He is faithful to the end and his love endures forever.

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We want to hear about what God has done in and through you at Victory. Whether long or short, complex or simple, your story is worth hearing, and there are others who need to hear it. Won’t you please consider sharing your story with us? If you’re willing to do so, please go to our homepage, victoryatl.com and click the Share Your Story quicklink, write your story, upload a nice photo (if you can) and click submit. It’s that simple. Now, don’t be shy. God’s given you a story for a reason! Share it today!

Are you as wise as you think you are? Take a look at how you live. Your day-to-day choices, actions and priorities tell the story. But don’t be fooled. You may be successful in the world, but how successful are you with God? The minute we take our eyes off Him, wisdom begins to disappear. Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, knows about this. He got caught up, made some bad choices and it cost him his life and his kingdom.

If Solomon could impart one piece of advice to us, I believe he’d say this: “Your life will rise to the level you place wisdom in your life.” The question is, how high – or low – is that level? We can all go higher.

In this last message of Running with the Giants, I share 5 principles to help you develop in wisdom. If you want to grow up in the Lord quickly, go hard after His wisdom. But it doesn’t help to have the answers like Solomon, and not apply them.

Make it a point to review – and live – these nuggets of truth daily! Click here to watch.

With record high temperatures across much of the country, let’s face it – this has been a HOT summer! But on July 22^nd, in the midst of the heat, ChickChat served up a cool dose of “girl power.” With Summer Bowie leading the way, the ladies of Victory World Church in Norcross, Georgia, sat back, chilled out and enjoyed an evening filled with love, laughter and fellowship.

The Praise Team got the evening off to a great start and after the ladies of the Praise Team topped off the set with a fantastic performance of “You Save Me,” Summer dove into her message entitled “Better.”

Most of us had dreams and aspirations while growing up, but how many of us are living those dreams and aspirations now?  Summer shared her dreams and the story of her journey to fulfill her biggest dream, only to discover that God’s plans are always better than anything we can plan.  Jeremiah 29:11 says: “For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.” (AMP)  God’s plan is not always bigger, but it is always better. Unfortunately, our own impatience and fear can steer us away from God’s plan. Summer used several scriptures to demonstrate this.

In Genesis 12:1-3, the Lord said to Abram “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you.  I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families will be blessed through you.” (NLT)  While Abram’s plan for his life probably did not resemble God’s, he did recognize God’s plan was better and he went forward in obedience. What great things are passing you by because you are not following God’s plan?

Then in Genesis 15:4 the Lord says to Abram “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.” (NLT)  The bible tells us that Abram’s wife, Sarai, desperate to give her husband an heir, took matters into her own hands, resulting in heartache and turmoil that was never part of God’s plan. What heartache and turmoil have you created in your life by taking matters into your own hands?

Finally in Genesis 17, God’s promise to Abram was fulfilled and Isaac was born when Abram, now Abraham, was 100 years old and Sarai, now Sarah, was 91.  I’m sure chasing after a toddler at that age was not part of their plan, but God’s plan was better.

Summer reminded the married ladies that they were part of God’s plan for their husbands and encouraged the single ladies by telling them that God has a plan for their lives.

Our God is faithful, and His plan often takes longer than we would like, but it is always worth the wait. Can you have faith like Abraham and Sarah? Are you willing to wait for better?

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We want to hear about what God has done in and through you at Victory. Whether long or short, complex or simple, your story is worth hearing, and there are others who need to hear it. Won’t you please consider sharing your story with us? If you’re willing to do so, please go to our homepage, victoryatl.com and click the Share Your Story quicklink, write your story, upload a nice photo (if you can) and click submit. It’s that simple. Now, don’t be shy. God’s given you a story for a reason! Share it today!

There’s nothing easy about courage. Most people associate it with major feats or big decisions, but courage applies even to the smallest details for some people. Often it’s courage we lack when we fail to pursue simple things that could make a big difference in our lives.

But Esther was a woman who faced life-threatening obstacles, yet she was fueled by the truth that God is in control. Despite her disadvantages, she took risks and acted in faith. Sometimes our lives are abruptly stopped in mid-motion and we land in big ditches. We want to persevere, but we feel stuck and we just don’t know how to move forward from the unfair, the unexpected or the unimaginable.

We welcomed one of our very own Victory members as a guest speaker this weekend, Valorie Burton. She brought us the life and courage of Esther and presented us with five commitments to help us overcome big challenges that seem to trap us, keep us down or hold us back from our purpose.

For starters, if we would get in the habit of proclaiming out loud what we will and won’t do, we’d find our actions would eventually line up with our words. Listen to this message for the five commitments and make them your personal declarations to get stronger and better. All of us are called to purpose like Esther. Let’s muster up her kind of courage too.