After defeat

ELVIN HAYES was NBA champion with the Washington BULLETS in 1978, university champion with HOUSTON, best university player (1967-1968), best NBA scorer (1969) and best rebounder (1970, 1974).

He always traveled with his Bible. For him, the most important thing in life was his relationship with God.

Elvin, who created the 'turnaround jump', once said: “No one likes winning more than I do, but after each defeat life goes on and you have to think about winning the next game”.

We have often talked about the victorious Christian life. Now let's add two very important things. The victorious life depends exclusively on our God. He gives us the victory.

We don't need to attack anyone, not even the Devil or his evil forces. The Bible tells us simply to stand firm, because God has already won and given us the victory.

The Devil can (and does) make us stumble, but he can't defeat us. The victory has already been won, and God has given us our ultimate destiny. This explains the importance of Jesus' words: 'Get up.'

Day by day, moment by moment we should be learning how not to fall; and if we do, to get up and go on fighting.

Secondly, we learn to stand firm in the victory when we are full of the Spirit, and give him total control.

Sometimes it's easy to turn things over to God the little things that make you look good spiritually and bring you peace, calmness, and so on. But it's a very different thing to give God TOTAL control of your life.

We treat God like a guest: we show him the tidiest rooms and hide our messy secrets. Don't let him go into the kitchen (where we keep our desires)! Or the workshop (where we keep our job, studies etc.) And don't even think about showing him the safe!

If we don't allow God to control certain areas, life will be full of defeat. We'll stand firm only if the Spirit of God fills us completely, without exceptions.