I have sought to lay a foundation for our study of the book of Revelation which we will continue in depth in 2025. However, it is customary to use the Words for the Week at the end of the year to recap the past year and look into the coming year.
As has been the case of every year since 2014, I have found 2024 to be my best year yet. (Since a personal encounter I had with the Lord in 2014, each year has become better!) The reason for this is, since that year, my main devotion has been to get closer to the Lord and to keep this as my primary purpose every day. We’re told in Psalm 16:11 that in His presence is “fullness of joy.” I have had many successes in life—and many failures—but all the experiences of this life have started to seem the same as I have learned to abide in Him more. How?
I have learned in these seventy-five years that the worst failures prepare us for even greater successes. Also, if we are truly living for the Lord—abiding in Him—the greatest successes are from, by, and for Him. It is a gift from God if we were are used to help bring them about, so it is right that we attribute all to Him. We can and should enjoy successes, but we can and should get more satisfaction out of His joy than our own.
It is the joy of the Lord, not our joy, that is our strength. If we walk in faith, we know that any failure or defeat is only a step in the progress we’re making toward a greater victory. So, we should rejoice in all of these, too. I’ve now lived long enough to see my failures and defeats turned into victories. However, few of these can be seen or understood by those who have an earthly perspective.
For example, the Lord said before His crucifixion, “the prince of this world is being cast out,” meaning Satan (see John 12:31). Everyone who did not have a heavenly, eternal perspective thought that Jesus was the one being cast out by being executed. What looked like the ultimate triumph of evil over good was actually the greatest triumph of good over evil. Do we have eyes to see this? Then we must also be able to perceive the true victories in our own lives which often look to the natural mind like defeats.
As strange as it may seem, both victories and failures are the same for those in Christ, because they all lead to the cross and the ultimate victory for true followers of Christ. They are all steps on the way to the ultimate destiny—being in Him who has never lost a fight! It’s not about our victories and defeats; it’s about His. If we’re living for Him and not ourselves, it will always be all about Him.
The apostle Paul wrote about being content whether he was abounding or being abased. Those who are mature in Him will keep a level head regardless of what external conditions may be. As long as we are in this world, it is hard not to think too much of victories or defeats, but the more fully we see the victory of the cross, the smaller all things earthly and temporary become.
The apostle Paul prayed to be conformed to the Lord’s death, and he died almost exactly like the Lord. The Lord died with all the people He had invested so much in having betrayed Him, denied even knowing Him, and scattered from Him when He needed His friends the most. Paul died this way, too. At his end, virtually all of the churches and people that he spent his whole life serving turned against him. Only a couple of his closest friends stood with him until the end.
Paul likely thought as he was going to his execution that he was a total failure. He may have thought that sacrificing having a family and enduring all of the persecutions and afflictions to serve the church had only resulted in them rejecting him and most of them being carried away into apostasy. Shouldn’t this great apostle have died with multitudes attending to him with their love and devotion? But he died virtually alone and abandoned by all, just as Jesus did. What did Paul call this seeming ultimate failure? He called it “momentary, light affliction” (see 2 Corinthians 4:17-18). Why? Because he saw from the perspective of eternity.
Paul was not living for what he got in this life. Because eternity was in his heart, he may have forgotten about those letters he had penned to some of the churches and associates. However, because he was so full of devotion to eternity, not the temporary, those letters remain to this day. Through them, Paul is likely still acquiring more rewards for his eternal life than all of the preachers alive today combined.
If we truly are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, we may still be walking on this earth, but we are already experiencing heaven. That’s where our treasure lies. Knowing this, it is hard to consider even the greatest tribulations on earth as very important. It’s the ultimate victory, the cross of Jesus, that greatly overshadows everything else in this life.
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