Victors Vs. Victims

1 John 5:1 - 5 (NKJV) 1Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. 3For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 4For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Text- 1 John 5:4 - 5 (NKJV) 4For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—£our faith. 5Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Many today want us to believe that Jesus Christ was a victim of the circumstances of His day. They want us to believe that the angry mob took His life; thus we too as His followers ought to victims, with a woe is me attitude.

But I want us to look into the Word of God and see what Jesus and the Apostles had to say on this matter.

Jesus taught His disciples throughout His ministry His purpose in coming to earth was to seek and save that which was lost, (Luke 19:10) and give Himself as a ransom for the lost, (Mark 10:45) & (1 Timothy 2: 5-6).

Luke 19:10 (NKJV) 10for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Mark 10:45 (NKJV) 45For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

1 Tim 2:5 - 6 (NKJV) 5For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, 6who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

Jesus made it clearly known in Gospel of John that He freely laid down His life for mankind’s salvation.

John 10:17 - 18 (NKJV) 17“Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.”

John 19:10 - 11 (NKJV) 10Then Pilate said to Him, “Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have power to crucify You, and power to release You?” 11Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above…

Only through our relationship with Him as born again believers can we walk in victory in the midst of the troubles and trials of this life. Let me make it clear that nowhere in the Bible does it teach that as believers we will be trouble or trial free.

Acts 17:28 (NKJV) 28for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

John 16:33 (NKJV) 33These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you £will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Rom 8:35 - 39 (NKJV) 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”£ 37Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2 Cor 4:7 - 12 (NKJV) 7But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 8We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 10always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12So then death is working in us, but life in you.