I sat holding my newborn granddaughter as, what should have been, a celebration of hard work and determination of our Olympic athletes, was instead, a vile promotion of debauchery featuring sexual deviants dancing among children ending in a ménage a trois.

I could not believe my eyes. It was nauseating, and we quickly turned it off.

I had (thankfully) missed a transvestite mockery of The Last Supper.

This was not art.
This was evil.

Can you imagine any other religion, like Islam, being so openingly mocked?

I’ve never seen evil so openly celebrated as it is all over the world today.

People marched this week in our nation’s capital FOR a terrorist organization that burned babies alive and tortured parents to death in front of their children. They defaced our monuments.

Evil no longer lurks in the corners, but is high and lifted up, paraded, and its target are those who worship the God of the Bible.

But that evil parade reminds me there is another parade—one Paul describes in his letter to the Corinthians.

“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. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.” (2 Cor 2:14-16)

The Corinthians would understand this analogy as they would have seen victorious Roman generals leading triumphant armies and their captives. Priests would have carried censers filled with incense behind the conquering generals.

That aroma would remind some of victory and would remind those in chains of death.

As believers God is indeed always leading us in triumphal procession.

We need to remember, we are in the place of victory.

As Priscilla Shirer says, “We aren’t fighting FOR victory but FROM a place of victory.”

The battle has been won. We are just walking home!

We need to see our world from that perspective.

We need to encourage each other to breathe in the sweet smell of victory. We are to be the aroma of Christ to each other.

But to the lost world, we smell of death. Of course they want to mock us and even kill us.

Those who don’t call Jesus, Lord, will push us away because they don’t want to be reminded of what they know, we believe, to be their future.

Deep down, those who are lost, suspect the God we are following really does exist and truly has the victory.

As we understand our position in this triumphal procession home and realize how the lost world sees this, we should not be surprised by their hatred of us. We should expect the persecution to increase.

And that makes me really sad for my kids and my grand baby EXCEPT I know God has them here for such a time as this.

The question is am I doing all I can to equip them to live in victory in this hard world?

Am I teaching them, and others, about the reason for the hope that I have?

Am I reminding myself that God is still saving the lost and that His Kingdom is powerfully advancing?

Am I standing up for truth even if that means I may lose earthly securities?

I will only do this if I stay connected, daily, to the source of my strength—Jesus.

I have to guard my heart and mind in Him continually and intentionally fellowship with others who are doing the same. Go to church tomorrow.

Oh believer, yes this world is sad and hard and evil, but The King is coming!

May our hope be set on Him. He will not fail us, and “he is not fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” (Elliot)

VictoryInJesus

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