Topic(s): Christian Life, Encouragement, Jesus

As one year closes and another opens to us, it is a good time to pause to take spiritual inventory and consider some personal improvements. Paul wrote, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves...” (2 Cor 13:5).

Think back to the old Bible story of Joshua. Under this great commander, God’s army suffered only one defeat in conquering all of Canaan. This battle was in a small place called Ai. Not a stronghold, but Israel “self-destructed” because they had sin in the camp. Achan’s covetousness caused thirty-six good men to die (Jos. 7:1-26). God would not fight for Israel until they corrected the problem. The offender was stoned and they went back to the battlefield. As the soldiers waited in the hills around Ai for the signal to attack, they must have wondered, “Can there be victory where there was once defeat?” The answer was “yes”—they won the battle in decisive fashion the second day.

Remembering four things can bring us a victory at our “Ai.”

YESTERDAY’S LOSS DOESN’T DOOM TODAY.

Christianity has suffered its apparent loses. Jesus was killed; the apostles were beaten; the church was scattered. But God always won in the end! Jesus was resurrected (Mk. 16:6); the apostles carried the Gospel to the whole world (Col. 1:23); the church multiplied in number (Acts 6:1,7; 9:31).

Christians have setbacks, too. You may have made mistakes, gone back to a bad habit, disappointed your family, failed at your job, even backslide from the Lord. We all make mistakes. One church bulletin reported that “everyone enjoyed the sining.” (I think the letter left out was a g and not an n!). The Firm Foundation once listed the Golf Course Road church of Christ in Midland, TX, as “God’s Course Road.” (God’s road can be difficult at times.) Around the first of the year, a sign advertising a local barber shop seemed to have lost a Y; it read, Happy New Ear. (Hopefully the barber had not made that serious of a mistake!)¹ Someone wished:

I wish that there were some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning-Again
Where all our mistakes and all our heartaches
And all our poor selfish grief
Might be dropped, like a shabby old coat, at the door,
And never put on again.

There is such a place. That place is here. There is such a time. That time is now (2 Cor. 6:2). Victory can follow defeat!

We all need to start over at times. Remember the throne set in heaven and the voice which cries, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5)? The Bible speaks of the new covenant. The Old Covenant was a sentence of death (Gal. 3:10), so Christ gave us a new one (Mt. 26:28). Under it, He forgets our sins (Heb. 8:12).  The Bible speaks of the new man. Life can be made over again (Gal. 6:15; Phil. 1:6). Jesus is the “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending...” (Rev. 1:8). The Bible speaks of a new way (Heb. 10:19, 20) that leads to a new Jerusalem (Rev. 3:12). Share in Paul’s optimism: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor 5:17).

DON’T STUMBLE OVER THE SAME STONE TWICE.

Joshua and Israel made sure that they had corrected the “Achan problem” before they returned to Ai. All of us make mistakes, but it is foolish to keep making the same mistakes. The Greeks used to say that stumbling is a human flaw, but “it is disgraceful to stumble against the same stone twice.”

David Lusk tells the story of two hunters who flew deep into remote Canada in search of elk. When they started home, their pilot saw their four elk and told them the plane could carry only two. They protested: “The plane last year was exactly like this one and we had six elk then.” The pilot reluctantly agreed to try. They loaded up and took off. Unfortunately the plane did not have sufficient power to climb out of the alley with all that weight, so they crashed. As they stumbled from the wreckage, one hunter asked the other if he knew where they were. “Well, I’m not sure,” he said, “but I think we are about two miles from where we crashed last year!”

We should learn from “last year’s mistakes” and not make them “this year’s mistakes.” We should put away childish things (1 Cor. 13:11) and remove the besetting sin (Heb. 12:1, 2). Life is a struggle, but crashing in the same forest is inexcusable. We may need to get a new set of friends (1 Cor. 5:33), or put some good influences in the place of old habits (1 Pet. 2:11). Are we willing to change our lives for the good of our souls? Or will we just go on sinning and watching ourselves crash and burn every year? For most of us it is not a new road we need, but a new determination with which to travel the way that lies before us.

CHAMPIONS GET UP ONE MORE TIME THAN THEY FALL (Jos. 8:19-21).

Championship seasons are rarely undefeated seasons. The NFL has had one undefeated season.² The NBA and Major League Baseball have had none. Tiger Woods is considered by many as the greatest golfer of all-time, and he doesn’t always win. He was 53rd at Pebble Beach and 56th at Bay Hill in 99. He was 60th in his first tournament, the Greater Milwaukee Open in 96, and then won the Las Vegas International and the Walt Disney World Classic that year, and has enjoyed thirty six PGA tour victories since then.

Every Christian makes mistakes. Peter made some serious blunders (cf. Lk. 22:45-61) but he bounced back (cf. Acts 2). So can we! If you have forsaken the Lord, do not give up hope. You can return and live the Christian life. It is possible. If you have lost your fervor for Christ, you can get it back. If the devil has led you down sin’s road, you can return—just as the prodigal did (Lk. 15). If you are defeated and despondent, remember Ai shows there can be victory where there was once defeat.

There can be victory where there was once defeat in breaking bad habits. Many Christians have finally conquered smoking, bad language, procrastination, gossip, and alcohol addiction by saying, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13; cf. 2 Cor. 3:4, 5). Jesus promised, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (Jn. 15:5).

There can be victory where there was defeat also in soul winning. Keep on inviting that family member or friend to church services. The next invitation may be the one they accept. The next sermon may be the one that reaches them. The next Bible study may convert them. Their souls are too valuable to give up (Mt. 16:26). Love keeps on keeping on. “Persistence breaks down resistance."

BE SURE TO PICK THE RIGHT TEAM (Jos. 8:7, 18).

Abraham Lincoln was asked during the Civil War, “Are you sure God is on your side?” He thoughtful reply was, “I am not so concerned if God is on our side, but whether we are on God’s side.” Christians need not worry over who will win. God will win. We need to concern ourselves with being “on His side.” As we contemplate important changes in our spiritual lives, let’s think on these powerful verses: “And now why tarriest thou? arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rm. 8:31b). “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:57). “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Rm 8:37). “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (Jas. 5:16). “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ...” (2 Cor 2:14). Enjoy a “victory in Jesus” on an old battleground this year!

1John Gipson, Keynotes
21972 Dolphins in the Super Bowl era (The Bears went undefeated in the 1934 regular season but lost the championship game.)