(Check out the details in this cave. Our Brother alone down there)
No one likes to be thought of as a victim. Jesus was a victim of all our sin and death. Yet we all want to think we are on top of our game. But if it’s true, that we are a victim, then it’s real. Who cares what anyone thinks? Make no doubt about it each of us is a victim to things we do not understand.
The tragedy comes when pride keeps us from admitting our need and thus falling prey. The entire Bible is written because we are victims of sin. Sin is more complex and destructive than nuclear fission. We are a victim of an extremely limited grasp of spiritual things. Why else would Jesus call us to become an overcomer? How’d ya like to sit down on His throne with Him? Worth doing some extraordinary stuff down here to ya?
Better that we quickly realize that we are in so many ways a victim, so that, like in any victim of war, we might seek proper help, learning and fight to overcome. We are also victim to many unknown deceptions so we must do what is necessary to not end up a casualty both in this world and hell -due to our pride and ignorance. Yes?
As long as the present exists you have hope for a future. You have hope for growth through humility. But if you do something to ruin your present, either physical, mental, emotional or spiritual, you eliminate any hope for change, a dream, for a future. I will always be a victim but always growing to help another victim by becoming an overcomer. Jesus doesn’t speak of a defeated future but that of great reward for “an overcomer”. It means we CAN do it. What else do we overcome but being a victim?
We think our days are ours to play and never suspect we’re being played. This in itself proves we are a victim. We float along in a brain fog – like a ghost with swagger. Nobody cares. We get used to it. Every day bleeds into the next. Then we get hit. Wham. Now we sit alone and ponder how great ‘yesterday’ was. “What if…what if…what if?” But this too is a con. Outward stuff may have been better but everything that matters is about inward stuff.
The reality is we were run on fumes for most of our time. We fake it hoping to catch up later. We surely were no where better, in reality, than we are now. We don’t grow backwards, even in a natural sense. Inside we were a sinking ship—taking on water, calling the drowning normal. Time to set the boat before it’s too late.
We are constantly being hustled by a dark world bro-sis. Torn up by layers of illusions and whirlwinds of chaos. The levels of deception are as deep as hell. If you take this lightly you’re what they call a “fool”. Sometimes our own stupid gets in the way of being smart. But that is an occasion not a norm. Jesus compensates for our weakness but resists our resistance. We know that nobody nobody nobody truly cares about us yet we still feel sorry for ourselves. Why? Because of that void for love only He can fill. Lack of love makes us feel like everything is against us-cuz it is. And it don’t get better so you gotta get HIS love in you bro.
Where is the living Jesus in your life? Amidst all the stuff in, around, about Him, where is He? Still. Silent. Alone. Waiting. You for Him. He for you.
There are three words for life in Greek: bios (like biology)- physical/ Psych (mental-psychological)/Zoe-eternal-divine life. Jesus says “I have come that you might have Life and have it abundantly” (Jn.10:10).
We are born into survival and existence not life. Every day lingers in an unwanted nightmare trying to find some kind of ‘special’ hot sauce of life in this world. But its all death. Jesus. His life. Life. Got to get to Him for Him to get to you.
Inner fears easily layer over stress, anxiety, confusion, and sometimes our own wreckage blocks our way. We thought it was long gone but there it is smack dab in the middle of our heart. No big deal. Nothing that faith can’t throw aside. You’re right, no one is there to care. But instead of folding inward let it go. We know that everything is against us. Even us. The cross ain’t no puzzle. Just leave everything there. See how much, how deep, how evil, how consequential things will be if you let them go. The Cross is for the very things that weigh you down. There is one way to go beyond the rut- beyond existence -faith in His Zoe- overcoming life-eternal.
YOU NEED NOT WONDER AS A VICTIM IF IT IS ‘IN THE CARDS’ TO BE A VICTOR BECAUSE IT IS IN HIS BLOOD- FAITH KNOWS NO DEFEAT
Not trying to scare you bro—but Satan is waging constant quiet war on your soul. Paul says its actually in the very air we breath (Eph.2:2). Legions war to keep us into a natural existence; survival. It don’t matter how “christianized” we paint our existence as you have no ‘still pattern’ no inner connection to “living water” the devil is content to leave you be.
Remember Satan is a beast not an angel or a lamb. He convinced Adam to allow him onto the earth and into each soul. He detonated the bridge God had designed within our soul to Him. Adam and Eve plundered and left us the full collapse of the human soul (psyche). And just because you won’t say you’re a victim doesn’t mean the damage ain’t real. Everything in the New Testament rings loudly of our victimhood. We are all born with psychological trauma passed on in the bloodline of Adam. It is Abraham who created another lifeline. He saw Christ in his day and built faith as the bloodline to Christ to escape the detriment of the fallen soul (John 8:56).
I see you and I as wounded kin, walking around in the broken machinery of being human. There are so many answers to our pain and struggle bro-sis. Let me help you. I desperately yearn to help so many but so few will take my hand. It is why I know he led us to such a lowly people. I see many men falter, and have no answers. Yet so grateful to “hear” God’s love; good news. The proud won’t let them ask for help. They are caught in the downstream of the frivolous quips and instincts of fallen flesh. They’ve built up too long this thing they call self. The other day I saw a famous actor whose face looked like crumpled lunch bag. He was in hiding because not only were others shocked by he himself was stunned by the consequence of death moving upon him in his final days. The biggest scam of the world is the shun of the most catastrophic tragedy of life-death. Final. Over.
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL STORY TO GO FROM VICTIM TO OVERCOMER-No greater joy than to see within yourself this process of the Holy Spirit working death and resurrection of the living Lord Jesus Christ –
If I could sit with you face to face, I’d say your name. I’d look you in the eyes. Maybe share a laugh. Just to let you know I’m not a stiff. Maybe a tear. If you are truly torn. Not to ask what you did that scarred your mind—but to ask what it did to you. All that pain you bury just to make it through. Blame won’t heal it—it just loops it. And the fear that someone might actually see the real you and walk away? That fear’s a lie. I feel it too. Most of us are running, all the way from the womb to the grave. But now is still time. Stop. Recognize you are a victim and God loves you so. Seize His love to be an overcomer.
A lot of people run to Christianity and the Bible to patch the cracks. Temporary fix. Try to clean up, sweep the conscience dirt under a rug, try to earn back what they lost. Maintain those parameters. But here’s the trap that wrecks more souls than anything else: the lie that says you gotta fix yourself before you’re worthy of love. That you have to get clean before God even sees you. That’s the con that keeps most people distant from Him—“I’m too dirty to matter.” But hear me: it’s the heart that knows it’s broken that’s closest to truth. That’s gold. Christian dimensions can’t find that. Because real love isn’t scared of your wreckage. Jesus awaits to send His Spirit. In fact this Son walked right into our wicked sinful nature. He entered it, took it on, and bore every strong dark tendency. And because of the tender mercies He showed in, through and beyond it all He can call us to overcome as He overcame. Why? “Lo I am with you always”. Not that His Spirit needs to surge within us with a divine power beyond our weakness? No. Because He loves us more than Himself. The just shall live by faith.
It’s a lie that you’ve gotta get rid of your darkness before God can love you. No. He loves you in it. But you must welcome Him in with full heart of faith. Faith don’t come down from heaven but up from our own grit. Jesus enters our world —to take into Himself every ounce of our pain of the same exact mess and weight. Not to shame us, but to carry us. He didn’t flinch. He bore it. And He still calls your name. We are working the Amazon areas of Brazil. Enormous need. Our work is intense. The picture above is one of the eleven prisons we worked in Mexico before we came here. We were able to get some U.S. funded flag football stuff donated to get flag football going there. They are thrilled. Mexico is thought of in such erroneous ways. It is a phenomenal country with phenomenal people. My daughter Ruth is in need of very serious surgery. Please pray for us. Even 5 seconds.
“One word of truth outweighs the whole world.” —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn