1 John 5:4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world–our faith.
As we are entering some of the most turbulent times in history, we’ve been receiving an unbelievable amount of email expressing concern about the future. But I want to tell you a little something — the future is VICTORY!
It’s not defeat or loss. If you think about it, all the great leaders of the Bible shone in the hardest of times. When the giant Goliath stood against the army of Israel, David didn’t sit around with his brothers complaining about how big Goliath was. Though David was a dwarf next to this evil giant, he was still convinced he was going to be victorious because God was on his side!
When the apostles saw Yeshua die, they must have felt utterly defeated — then, suddenly, there he was, out from the grave, gloriously alive before them — and from then on they walked in His victory! They didn’t sit around complaining about Roman persecution, the Sanhedrin, or the Pharisees. They didn’t get wrapped up in how evil the world was becoming; instead, they pressed forward in the worst of times and in those dark days they shone like the stars in the midnight sky.
In the face of everything that’s happening around us, let’s be sure we’re not developing a defeatist attitude. We are called children of the King, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation. Despite how bad things may be getting — don’t forget we’re on the winning team! We can stand against this evil and overcome it… with good!
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy Devotions. This devotional was originally published on Worthy Devotions and was reproduced with permission.
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Thousands of people all over the world will celebrate Pesach (Passover) tonight, commemorating the day the Angel of Death passed over the Israelite slaves in Egypt, sparing their firstborn because the blood of a lamb was applied on their doorposts. Many believers in Yeshua (Jesus) also recognize this as the day that Messiah was crucified, offering Himself as the perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, which reconciled man to His Maker, and restored them to close relationship.
In the Tenach (Old Testament), the Lord commanded Israel to count the Omer (the Barley Harvest) beginning the day after the sabbath during Passover, 50 days to the Biblical Festival of Shavuot (Pentecost). Today is the 4th day of the Omer and Shavuot is just a few weeks away…
Tomorrow night, thousands will begin celebrating the feast of Pesach (Passover), the day we remember God’s merciful redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt. When the final plague struck Pharoh and the Egyptians in Exodus, those who were spared were the ones who applied blood to their doorposts as God warned. Interestingly, the blood that God required them to apply then was the blood of a spotless, unblemished lamb.
In the parable of the unmerciful servant, the servant mistakenly thought that he could demand justice from another servant all the while asking mercy for himself from the king. When the king found out about this servant’s awful behavior, he became enraged and said to him “You wicked servant, I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to; couldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”
I read a story about a new young partner in a law firm. The senior partners had set extremely high standards and had coached him carefully. He did well in some minor trials but he lost his first big case. When the partners reviewed the trial, they pointed out his errors and suggested different strategies. Even with all their critique, he lost the next big one. He felt terrible. Were they ready to give him the boot?
As Scotland was declaring its independence from England in the 1300’s, the English were hunting for Robert Bruce of Scotland in an attempt to prevent his accession to the Scottish throne. In the search, the English put Bruce’s own bloodhounds on his trail. As they grew closer to apprehending him, Robert the Bruce found a small river, and he said to his foster-brother who was with him, “Let us wade down this stream for a great way, instead of going straight across, and so these unhappy hounds will lose the scent; for if we were once clear of them, I should not be afraid of getting away from the pursuers.”
The first man was called “Ah-dom”, we know him as “Adam”. The word used for “man”, as in “mankind”, in Genesis 1, is also the same word – “Ah-dom”. “Ah-dom” is rooted in the three Hebrew letters, aleph-dalet-mem, and one of the Hebrew words for earth is “Adamah”, which contains the same three letters, however it ends with the Hebrew letter “hay”. “Adamah” means “red earth”, or “red clay”, and this word points to the natural earth elements, the “earth dust” that composed Adam’s body, and the body of every human being since. “Man” is “ah-dom”, in a very real sense, “clay”.