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"We are aliens in a strange land. The problem is that most of us have decided to settle into this home in ways that we weren’t meant to. We have gotten comfortable in our surroundings and have started to believe that we deserve the goodness that others have when times are good in their lives."
As quoted from the book "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society" by John H. Hovis Page 144.
There is a real danger in getting comfortable. A friend of mine and his wife quit their high paying jobs at the pinnacle of their careers. They gave it all up to travel to Africa to be a part of what God was leading them to do in that distant land. When I asked them why now they gave me an incredible answer. They said that they had seen how stuck we get in our ways when we get old. They decided that they would rather get old being stuck in serving rather than growing old and being stuck in comfort. Now, there's a victor statement I would like to live up to.
Isn't it true that it is so easy to let the comforts of this life be what drives us at times? It is so tempting to compromise our values and beliefs when our comfortable life is in jeopardy. I wish I wasn't that way but I am. The same can be said of the Israelite in the Old Testament. It was when they decided to settle in where they were at that things turned sour in their lives.
Unless we come to grips with the fact that God sees this place as a temporary residence for His Children we will be caught up in victim thinking tendencies that come as this world fails us over and over again. This world is just too small to house the creative and redemptive power that God has placed inside you and inside me. It is as we live out this life as the nomads we are that that power starts to come alive in those of us He calls His Children.
Today's Bible reading is pretty direct about how we are to view this world. It says...
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. 1 John 2:15-17 (NASB)
It is when we let the love of this world be what makes us feel safe, accepted, worthy and filled with purpose that the love of God takes a back seat in our lives. God's love is what is to sustain and fulfill us. Yet we turn to things other than God's love so quickly in this world. Why do we do that? I think it is because it is easier to believe what we can see - the things we think we can grab and control through our own efforts than to trust an unseen God to give us what we think we need.
That's not something that surprises God. In fact the Bible says the angels in heaven stand in amazement at our choices at times. We amaze all of heaven as we choose to follow God in spite of what this world offers up. I know we don't do that all the time, but when we do we are viewed in awe filled ways. And why wouldn't we be - we are a chip off the old block! As God's children we have the very image of our perfect and powerful Father residing inside each and every one of us. We aren't God, but we carry the image of God as part of our DNA.
That's why it is so important that we turn to God for all we need to live out the status of a victor we all work so hard to maintain. Nothing in this temporary and fallible world will ever come close to matching the permanence and completeness of what God offers when it comes to identity and purpose. It is when we get too comfortable with life and with our ability to provide in this life that we get ourselves in places where victim thinking is an inevitability.
It isn't that God doesn't want us to be comfortable. It is that He knows the pain our settling for a temporary comfort will cause us and the ones we love in the long run. The reality is that we weren't put here to find an easy life. We were put here to build the Kingdom of God. Sometimes that is a arduous task that requires something more than our abilities to complete. As we lean into the fact that we are but passing through this life, the comforts we might be enjoying today take on a perspective that is easier for us to live out the victor status God so wants for our lives.
How rooted in your life are you today? God isn't asking you to throw away your comfortable life. He wants you to enjoy all you have worked to amass without it impacting your identity. He gave you all the resources you have to make the Kingdom Building process before you possible in the first place. Enjoy all you have and let God use you and your position to the max. As His Child you are all the victor you need to be to make change happen in the world all around you today.
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