You Have the Victory, Not the Advantage

1 Corinthians 15:57:
But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

If a team has the higher score after the third quarter of the Super Bowl, it has the advantage.

If a team has the higher score after the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, it has the victory.

God doesn’t declare that you have the advantage through our Lord Jesus Christ.  If that were so, you would still have to keep fighting until you get the victory.  Victory is only counted when a fight is over.  God gives you victory as a gift just as He gives you righteousness and every other spiritual blessing as a gift. That means that you receive it – you don’t fight for it.

Too many Christians waste their prayer time trying to win a won battle. They think they need to engage in battle against wicked antichrist spirits.  They suppose that enough prayer will overcome them.  They think they have an advantage over them.  But here is what God says about antichrist spirits:

1 John 4:4:
Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

“Have overcome” is past tense.  Right now, you have the victory over them, not an advantage that you must use in prayer.

Trying to overcome the devil and his agents by prayer is a waste of your time.  There is a sense in which we “overcome” him by exercising our New Covenant rights that Jesus’ blood paid for.  But even during the Tribulation, notice something about how believers “overcame” Satan:

Revelation 12:11:
And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death.

They knew what Jesus’ blood had already provided for them, they testified about Him, and they were sold out to God even if it cost them their lives.  Notice what is glaringly NOT in that verse.  It does not say that anyone overcame Satan by prayer!

While allegedly mighty intercessors are working hard to get the victory over Satan and his subjects, consider what the apostle John also said:

1 John 2:13-14:
I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one.
I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.

Why fight for victory when Jesus GIVES you the victory?

The fight against Satan is over.  We are now left with “the good fight of faith:”

1 Timothy 6:12:
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

The fight is to stay in faith, not to defeat Satan’s agents, whom Jesus already defeated.

Colossians 2:15:
And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

So what is the difference in fighting the good fight of faith versus fighting the devil and his agents?

Let’s go back to the Super Bowl analogy.

Fighting the devil is like thinking you are in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl, doing whatever you can to obtain the victory.

Fighting the good fight of faith is being the winner of the Super Bowl when Satan comes to you with a lie: “You didn’t win the Super Bowl.  It’s still the fourth quarter and you need to get on the field and ‘come against’ my team.”  Christians who don’t know better take up the challenge and get back on the field to try to win the game.  Christians who know the Word just say, “I already HAVE the Super Bowl victory.  The game is over, so I don’t need to go out there and run more plays.”  The fight is not on the football field but in your mind where you have to decide not to try to win a victory that you already have.  The good fight of faith is where you avoid being talked out of what Jesus gave you by a lying adversary who is already defeated.