Romans 8:35-37 (TPT) Who could ever separate us from the endless love of God’s Anointed One? Absolutely no one! For nothing in the universe has the power to diminish his love toward us. Troubles, pressures, and problems are unable to come between us and heaven’s love. What about persecutions, deprivations, dangers, and death threats? No, for they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love, [36] even though it is written: All day long we face death threats for your sake, God. We are considered to be nothing more than sheep to be slaughtered! [37] Yet even in the midst of all these things, we triumph over them all, for God has made us to be more than conquerors, and his demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything!
When your fearless leader is encountering the same trials and difficulties you are and more, it might make you have a question or two about what you’re being led into. The same Jesus that merely spoke death to the fig tree for apparently being an inconvenience, went through terrible rejection and even the inability to do any mighty work among those who were too familiar with him. If the success of our faith were dependent upon the complete removal of all hardships, Paul, our mentor and most helpful illuminator, would have been the greatest failure. But though we’ve been given authority over all the works of the enemy, we’ve never been promised the kind of victory over our trials that abolishes them from the experience of this temporary life on earth. The status of our true victory never changes no matter the mounting list of tribulations. What Christ has already won for us is triumphant access into His very presence where the power of love transcends every adversity, no matter how ominous and oppressive.
It’s a bit like the injury report at the end of a successful Super Bowl bid. For some players there may have been physical damages that were actually a part of attaining the overall victory. They may have even endured career-ending injuries that for them were definitely devastating failures of a personal nature. No matter the magnitude of these individual trials, however, the next day the fact will be that every single one of them is a Super Bowl champ. Their choice will be at that time to either fixate and identify with the personal failure, completely denying the significance or value of the greater triumph, or let who they’ve become with the team elevate their spirits as they participate in the celebration of overcomers.
In this day, no matter the extent of the trials, their longevity or intensity, there is a choice to be made. Either these things will move us to identify with an apparent failure of what we were “believing” for, or we will simply choose the victory that can never be touched by life’s greatest setbacks. What we’re following our fearless leaders into is faith in a victory that is undefeated and independent of wondering what God’s whim might be for today. As soon as the choice is to let any personal difficulty separate us from love’s triumphant celebration, the power to influence any circumstance is severely undermined and disabled. The faith that speaks to mountains works by a celebration of love’s triumph that precedes any evidence of submersion.
Whether wrought with challenges on every side or experiencing the blessings of a fulfilled promise, the choice is the very same for this day – dependence at all on a worldly validation of triumphant celebration, or a passionate embrace of the conqueror we’ve been made to be in the love of Christ, totally independent of circumstances. True faith will always lead to the choice of an unending, unshakeable, and dominating celebration of love’s triumph. This is the faith that overcomes the world.