If you want to see victory in your spiritual life you’re going to have to start with God’s standard of victory.
If you Google, “How to Live a Life of Victory,” you will find all sorts of “Steps to a Life of Victory.”
Professionals and pastors have written many books and sermons on this topic because obviously no one wants to live a life of defeat.
You will often read something similar to this as you try to “learn how have a life of victory.”
“Many Christians are living defeated, unsatisfying and unsatisfactory lives- why is this? It’s because they have never had powerful “experience” with God.”
Now this sounds like a fantastic Christian thing to say - because in part, it’s true. Until one has a true awakening to the sheer holiness of God, most often times people will see Him only as a stale religion, a distant deity, or non loving, personal Father and Friend and Savior.
But what they’re missing is so much more than just an “experience of God,“ they are missing the steadfast love of God and His presence in our battle in this world as we allow His Holy Spirit to lead us.
Galatians 5: 16-26 “So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. 19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.
God isn’t just an emotional experience, or a physical high, or even a rush of adrenaline when we have a good day overcoming temptations or feeling strong because we have a powerful ministry.
Victory in Christ is far more than an experience and feeling.
It is a day in and day out spiritual battle
against a very real enemy who wants to take us down and steal our purity, our joy, our peace and ultimately destroy our relationship with God.
This is why we need to understand that the Tools of Faith, “our Battle Gear” are truly essential to our every day life.
The Breastplate of Righteousness is critical because our enemy hates that we want to honor God. So, if he can trip us up and cause us to fail in our desire to follow Christ, he can cause us great emotional damage and pain. Scars that can last a lifetime. Therefore we must guard our hearts and put on our breastplate.
Think of like this - a breastplate for a soldier protects his physical heart.
Likewise with your Breastplate of Righteousness; it will guard your spiritual heart with the leading of the Holy Spirit and the power of God flowing inside your soul.
Guard your heart, feed your spiritual body Godly nutrients, don’t feast off the worlds sinful pleasures, we all need healthy hearts to live, so let’s feed it the right nutrients through our spiritual food as well.
If you are searching for a victorious life, start by following God’s standards, not the world’s version of power and success and fame - but living a life of righteousness and honor.
Proverbs 4: 23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”