Have plenty of courage. God is stronger than the devil. We are on the winning side.
~John Jay Chapman (1862-1933)
Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
~John 16:31-33
One of the most useful military strategies is the use of overwhelming violence to bring about peace on the battlefield. The concept has been called many things. Recently the term “Shock and Awe” was used. The idea is that the best way to save lives in battle is to bring the most intense, hyper-violent action possible to bear on a theater of operations, so as to decimate an enemy’s willingness to fight on.
Down in the tactics of this strategy is a weapon called the sabot round. One type of sabot round is fired by an M-1 tank’s main 120mm gun. This is basically a 20-pound arrow imbued with enormous kinetic energy upon firing. The velocity at which these rounds are fired (1,500 meters/second) enable them to burrow their way through armor like “a hot knife through butter.” The armor that is displaced enters the crew compartment as molten spall, which usually results in a catastrophic kill.
I have seen the evidence from the battlefield. The devastation is mind-numbing. The power transferred by these sabot rounds into an enemy target, tears them open like pulling the foil off a TV dinner.
Simply firing this round creates a wave of overpressure that makes it dicey to even stand near the tank when it fires the round. The energy is just jaw-dropping.
Powerful. Yes. But how about our Jesus?!?!
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
~ Romans 8:37-39
Beloved, it is time to start living like something is true. Jesus has won. Jesus does win. Jesus will win. And believer, now through His indwelling Spirit, we are one with Him. Do the math: In Him, we win. Game over.
Jesus eats “impossible” for breakfast.
The weight and pain of the world is real. It is though – in light of our victory in Christ – as irrelevant as plate glass is to an M1 sabot round. His strength simply overwhelms these issues in our spirits.
Throughout the New Testament it is clear that there is to be a clear disconnect between our circumstances and our relationship with Him. That, in fact, circumstance is only designed to be something that points us to Him, and shows us our weakness – so that we rely ever more fully on His strength.
Further, the book of Revelation makes it really clear that being a coward is a really big deal to G_d. He has given us everything we need to get through life without fear. Period. He has given us such an overwhelming abundance of grace, that we have to actually avoid it to not have enough.
And therein lies the rub, doesn’t it? Aren’t we all too often willing to sit at the very banquet table of grace, and refuse to eat, like a picky child?But, oh my, as we buy-in to His truth, and start to pick up on the joy that yields strength in Him, His overwhelming power invades every bit of territory that we yield to Him. And G_d is jealous to protect His victories. He does not lose that which He gains.We begin to live in, but no longer of, this world. In Him, our lives cut a swath through the darkness with the energy of the Love and Light of creation. We pour forth His glory in a wave of overpressure that overcomes the world.Friend, if this doesn’t spark a fire under us, our wood is wet!
The Bible is a first-hand story of goose-bump courage in very ordinary people who were invaded by the living God.
~Tim Hansel
