Hope Filled Living

Choosing Hope and Cultivating an Inspired Life with Author, Mary Clewley

Are You Living a Victorious Life?

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For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory. Deuteronomy 20:4

Finally, be strong in the Lord in His mighty power. Ephesians 6:10

For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 1John 5:4

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:37

But thanks be to God, who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57

But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us, spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 2 Corinthians 2:14

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 2 Corinthians 4:8

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 1 John 4:4

These are just a few examples of the promises of victory that we find in the Bible. Victory is not found in a sermon, a book or a prayer group. Victory is found only through the Lord Jesus Christ and His unmerited favor and grace upon us. If you have been trying to live victory to victory by yourself and find yourself coming up empty, stressed or defeated, God may be telling you, “come to me and I will give you rest“.  When we commit to allowing God to take over and confess His victory over our lives, we are essentially handing him the wheel, “Lord, all of my efforts to live victoriously over my problems, obstacles, frustrations and even small sinful attitudes have come up empty. I am going to trust you to give me victory.”

By yielding to and trusting God, we are victorious minute by minute and in every situation. Victorious living is a learning process. As we lean into God, speak with God and yield our circumstances to God even when it is uncomfortable and we feel out of control, we learn to walk in victory. As with all disciplines, we will fail many times as we are learning. We may lose hope, get frustrated and think that God is not moving on our behalf. During these times, it is important to get grounded in God’s promises and His word. As we learn to walk in victory, we hold onto and claim the promises of Christ as our victory rather than quickly letting defeat set in and bring discouragement to our hearts and lives.

We are victorious in Christ Jesus, but we must choose to live in victory. We must choose to go from victory to victory even if we fall. We must choose to get back up and dust ourselves off and humble ourselves before the Lord, asking him to take the wheel. We must yield to God and trust him with our problems and the details of our lives. A defeated Christian is not a good testimony to a life in Christ! We don’t want to walk in defeat!

 

My 101 day prayer journaling workbook, Victorious Living, will guide you through 101 days on the discipline of living victoriously in Christ. Each page has a prayer and praise, space for reflection, scripture references and an assignment. I pray that you will take the first step and commit to yielding to Christ in your daily living. As with anything we try to learn, we must work very hard at it and start over again and and again. Working through a workbook will not bring you victory in your life, but the discipline of confessing victory in your life and working each day on a victorious mindset through Christ Jesus will bring you victory! The workbook will help you develop the discipline to yield your thoughts to Christ so that you may be victorious regardless of your situation.

 

Lessons From The Valley

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What happens in life when you come up against impossible situations? How do you handle them?

I have learned through the deepest valleys of my career that God is always the great refiner, performing the deepest root work through the fires of life, through the tough things, and each obstacle presents an opportunity to deepen our faith and grow in wisdom.

If your situation seems hopeless, attempt to look at it from a new perspective. Things are not always as they appear. God is ever faithful and sometimes we do not get the big picture until years after an experience in the valley.

 

 

Some things I have learned in the valley:

  1. All of our abilities belong to God.
  2. When considering a life of faith, the longings of our heart and soul should be consecrated to God.
  3. When your heart is in the right place and you are ready to receive, God will open doors for you.
  4. He longs to give you the desires of our heart.
  5. God loves you so much that when you feel you are at the lowest point, He will send others to surround you with His love and tender care until you heal.
  6. Employ your gifts to help others.
  7. He always has a plan.

My posts for the week of March 27-31 will focus on lessons learned in the valley. Stay tuned or subscribe to my e-mail updates.

Setting Concrete Goals

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Do you have any life goals that you would like to work toward and/or achieve in the next twelve months?

Some areas you may want to consider are family, church, work, personal life, education, etc.  When you set a goal, it is good to write a statement reflecting the goal. Your goal statement should be specific, achievable and measurable. A goal is something you work to accomplish. You do activities and ACCOMPLISH goals.

A good idea or example is to write three goals in the following categories. Remember to make your goal statements bite size enough that you can achieve them, yet big enough that you have to work toward accomplishing them!

Family Goals:
1.
2.
3.
(Good concrete examples are: Spend 30 minutes per day quality time with each person. Schedule a 7-day vacation. Etc.)

Educational Goals:
1.
2.
3.

Work/Career Goals:
1.
2.
3.

Personal Goals:
1.
2.
3.

List the goals above in order of priority by assigning them to either A (high priority) or B (low priority). Do the same for the category B priorities!

I realize that most of us set goals at the beginning of each New Year. Some of us just mull them over in our head while others list them out.  By this time, you may have put aside some of those goals or decided that they are not achievable and have given up on the idea of accomplishing them. The first quarter of the year is a good time to reflect upon our priorities, look at our goals, and perhaps break them down into smaller bites so that we can accomplish them, even if it requires taking baby steps.

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