Ever hear this before? “I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet…” Well, meeting this man with no feet will make you cry…

“But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.” -1 Corinthians 15:57-58

When I was in Junior High, I had a Nintendo game system and a particular baseball game in which you could pre-program the statistics of your team to make them better. You were allowed a certain number of homeruns for the season and you divided them among your lineup as you felt best. I would stack the first seven batters with all of the statistics so that I would end up winning almost every game against the computer. In a 162-game season, I’d end up winning about 150 games! Cheating? You decide.

One thing I know is that the odds are already stacked in our favor. You may feel like Satan’s punching bag today, but God has already insured your success. Satan is defeated, or at least he is as good as defeated. When darkness shrouded Jesus on the cross, Satan had his brief glimmer of limelight, but when the tomb was opened, Satan’s doom was sealed! Now God’s Word says clearly that every believer has sure victory, certain success, absolute assurance of final conquest.

We often wonder at God’s ways. If you want your people to work hard, why guarantee their salary? Why not give them a quota, some incentive to earn their keep. But remember that the very nature of salvation is that it’s a free gift from God. The gospel would not be so glorious if it could be earned by our labor. Instead it is too lofty, too high for us. It is so glorious it is unattainable. God’s eternal riches are reserved for those who, in absolute humility, fall on their faces before His throne in worship and adoration. May His name be praised! We’ve won, now let’s get to work!

“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.” -Prov. 11:30

I’m afraid that the term “soul winning” has come to have a very particular connotation to it. We assume, when we see this phrase, that we’re discussing an official door-to-door ministry of the local church in which we head out with tracts and New Testaments with a view to winning converts to Christ.

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