A Victory Worth Having

For Aaron

There is something many people wonder about, even if they never say it out loud: “Will I really make it?  Will I be among those who receive the promises of God? Have I done enough?  Am I worthy?”  Some people look at their past and think they have disqualified themselves. Others look at their present struggles and wonder whether a person who still battles temptation, fear, anger, weakness, or doubt can truly be called victorious.  Some have even been taught to think that victory means reaching a place where they never fall, never struggle, never make a mistake, and never have another bad day.  If that were the standard, none of us would have much hope.  But that is not the victory the Bible teaches us about.

Jesus said something very important before He went to the cross: “In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Notice what Jesus did not say.  He did not say that His followers would never have trouble.  He did not say they would never struggle.  He did not say they would become so strong that they would never fall.  He said, “I have overcome the world.”  Our victory begins with His victory, and that changes everything.  We are not trying to accomplish something Christ failed to accomplish.  We are following the One who has already overcome.

The Bible does not present victory as a person becoming so perfect that he no longer needs Christ.  Quite the opposite.  The victorious person is the one who continues to belong to Christ.  He may stumble, but he gets back up. He may become discouraged, but he turns again toward God.  He may have to fight the same battle more than once, but he does not decide that the battle is no longer worth fighting.  When he falls into sin, he does not make peace with that sin and call darkness light.  He turns around, he repents, and he keeps going.

That is why Scripture says, “Everyone born of God overcomes the world.  This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4).  Look carefully at that. It does not say that victory belongs only to people who have never struggled. It says that faith is connected with overcoming.  The victory is not that you have somehow become powerful enough to save yourself.  The victory is that you have placed your trust in the One who already overcame. Biblical faith is not merely agreeing that Jesus exists. It is trusting Him, following Him, and continuing to believe Him when circumstances make that difficult.

This matters when we think about the Tree of Life.  In the beginning, humanity was driven from the Garden of Eden, and the way to the Tree of Life was guarded.  Genesis 3:24 tells us that cherubim were placed at the east of the garden, along with a flaming sword that turned in every direction to guard the way to the Tree of Life.  Humanity could not simply walk back into the Garden and take what had been lost.

But then we come to the end of Scripture, and the Tree of Life appears again.  Jesus says to the church, “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7).  That is not an accidental statement.  The story that began with humanity being separated from the Tree of Life ends with God's people receiving access to it again. Something that was lost in Genesis is restored in Revelation.

And this is where that question about being “worthy” needs to be understood correctly.  If we look at ourselves alone, none of us has a righteousness that gives us the right to boast before God.  Scripture makes that plain.  Our hope is not, “I was good enough.”  Our hope is Christ.  We are not standing before God waving a résumé of our accomplishments and saying, “Look what I did.”  We are standing there because Jesus did what we could never do for ourselves.

That does not mean our choices do not matter.  They matter enormously.  Jesus repeatedly called people to repent, believe, obey, endure, and overcome.  Grace is not God's permission for us to remain comfortably buried in sin.  Grace is God's mercy that brings us out of it.  There is a difference between falling and surrendering.  A person can fall and still get back up.  A person can fail and still repent . A person can struggle for years with a particular weakness and still hate that weakness and desire to be free from it.  That person is not defeated simply because the battle is difficult.

The real danger is when a person stops caring whether he is walking with God.  There is a great difference between saying, “Father, I fell again.  Please forgive me and help me get back up,” and saying, “I know this is wrong, but I do not care.  I intend to continue doing it, and I do not want You telling me otherwise.”  One person is struggling against sin and turning toward God.  The other has chosen to surrender to sin. Those are not the same thing.

That is why victory cannot be measured simply by counting how many times you have fallen.  Sometimes the evidence that a person has not surrendered is found in the fact that he keeps getting back up.  Think about a child learning to walk.  The child stands, takes a few steps, falls down, cries, gets picked up, and eventually tries again.  Nobody watching that child says, “Well, you fell, so apparently you are not a walker.”  Falling is part of learning to walk.  Our walk with God is more serious than that, because sin is not something to treat lightly, but the picture helps us understand perseverance.  God knows our weakness.  He is not surprised when we discover that we are weaker than we thought we were.  What matters is whether we turn away from Him or turn toward Him.

Proverbs 24:16 says, “Though a righteous person falls seven times, they rise again.”  The striking thing about that verse is that the righteous person is not described as someone who never falls.  The righteous person is described as someone who rises.  That should give somebody hope.

Maybe you have fallen more times than you can count.  Maybe you look at your past and think, “If people knew everything about me, they would never believe God could still want me.”  Maybe you remember things you wish you could erase.  Maybe you have hurt people.  Maybe people have hurt you.  Maybe there are things you have done that you are deeply ashamed of.  You are not the first human being to discover that sin has consequences, but your past is not greater than the blood of Christ.

The apostle Paul had a past. He had persecuted the followers of Jesus.  Yet Christ called him, changed him, and used him.  Peter denied Jesus three times, yet Jesus restored him and entrusted him with work to do.  David committed terrible sins, yet when confronted, he repented.  The Bible does not hide the failures of its people because God is not building His story around perfect human beings.  He is showing us what His mercy can do with people who turn back to Him.

The story Jesus told about the prodigal son gives us another powerful picture of this.  The son left his father's house, wasted what had been given to him, and ended up in a miserable condition.  Then he came to his senses and returned home.  His father did not tell him that he had been gone too long to come back. The father ran to meet him.  Jesus was showing us something about the heart of God toward the person who turns back.

That does not mean the son's actions did not matter.  They did matter.  His rebellion had consequences, and he had to humble himself enough to return.  But his failure did not make repentance impossible.  He could still turn around.  He could still go home.  That is something people need to understand about God. Conviction is meant to turn us back toward Him, not convince us that we are permanently beyond His mercy.

This also helps us understand the difference between condemnation and conviction.  Condemnation says, “You have failed, therefore there is no reason to return.”  Conviction says, “You have sinned, so turn back to God.”  One pushes a person away from God.  The other calls a person back to Him.  Romans 8:1 says, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  Then it continues, "who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."  That does not mean sin does not matter.   It means that the person who is in Christ does not have to live forever under the sentence of condemnation, because Christ has dealt with sin. All he need do is get up again, and walk after The Spirit of God.

So how can a person know whether he or she is walking in victory?  We should not measure victory simply by asking whether we have ever fallen.  We need to look at the direction of our life.  When we recognize sin, do we defend it or repent?  When God corrects us, do we become hardened against Him or listen to Him?  When we fall, do we decide there is no point in trying again, or do we turn back toward Christ?  Do we still desire God?  Do we still want His truth, even when His truth corrects us?  Do we still call upon Him when we have failed?  Do we still believe that Jesus is Lord?  Do we still desire to overcome?

Those questions are important because spiritual growth can be so gradual that we do not always recognize it while it is happening.  A person may look back after several years and realize that attitudes he once accepted are no longer acceptable to him.  Things he once defended may now trouble his conscience.  He may recognize that he is quicker to repent, more willing to forgive, more concerned about truth, and more aware of God's presence than he was before.  He may still have plenty of growing to do, but something has changed.  That is growth.

We should not expect spiritual growth to look like a person suddenly becoming perfect overnight.  Growth is often much quieter than that.  We keep walking with God, and as we continue, He changes us.  Sometimes we do not recognize how far we have come until we look back and compare where we are now with where we once were.  That does not give us permission to become satisfied with sin.  It gives us reason to recognize that God really does work in people.

And this brings us back to that troubling question many people carry: “Am I worthy?”  If by worthy we mean that we have earned eternal life through our own goodness, then none of us can make that claim.  We do not stand before God and present Him with a list of accomplishments that obligates Him to save us.  We come through Jesus Christ.  Our confidence is not based on pretending that we have never been wicked. Our confidence is based on what Christ has done.

But that does not mean our response to Christ is irrelevant.  Jesus calls us to follow Him.  He calls us to repent.  He calls us to remain faithful.  He calls us to overcome.  Grace is not a reason to stop fighting sin.  Grace is the reason we can return to God when we have sinned and continue walking with Him. 

This is why we have to be careful with the thinking of “worthiness.”  We are not trying to earn God's love by becoming impressive enough.  At the same time, we cannot not use God's grace as an excuse to refuse obedience.  Christ does not call us to save ourselves.  He calls us to follow Him.  There is a huge difference.

Jesus said, “The one who stands firm to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:13) The word “end” matters because the Christian life is not merely about how we began.  It is about continuing with Christ.  A person may have begun badly and later turned to God.  Someone may have wandered for years and finally come home.  Someone may have spent a great portion of life moving in the wrong direction and eventually realized that he needed to turn around.  The length of the detour does not make returning impossible.

This is why we should never assume that a person's past tells us everything about his future.  God can change people.  He can take someone who has been running from Him all his life and bring that person home.  He can take someone who has spent years making terrible choices and teach that person how to walk differently.   He can take someone who believes his past has made him unusable and show him that repentance is not the end of his usefulness to God.

The Tree of Life helps us see the larger picture.  In Genesis, humanity is separated from it because of sin.  In Revelation, the Tree of Life is again present in the city of God.  Revelation 22:14 says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city.”  The final picture is not humanity sneaking back into Eden and taking something God refused to give.  It is God granting access to those who belong to Him.

That is why the promise of the Tree of Life should not make us live in constant terror that we will never be good enough.  Instead, it should make us take seriously the call of Christ to overcome.  Jesus does not tell us to overcome so that we can boast about how strong we are.  He calls us to overcome because He has overcome and because He is calling us to remain faithful to Him.

Our confidence, therefore, is not in ourselves. Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) That is where our confidence belongs. We are not trying to defeat the world by our own strength. We are trusting the One who already defeated it, and we continue with Him when the road becomes difficult.

If you have fallen, that does not mean the story is finished.  If you have sinned, repent.  If you have wandered, turn around.  If you are weary, continue with Christ.  If you are ashamed, do not allow shame to convince you that you should hide from the very One who can restore you.  If you are fighting a battle that nobody else knows about, do not assume that the existence of that battle means you have already lost. You are not alone.  Bring it before God and keep turning toward Him.

Overcoming does not mean that you were never weak . It means that weakness does not have the final authority over you.  Sin may have been part of your story, but it does not have to write the ending.  Failure may have marked your past, but it does not have to determine where you finish.  What matters is whether you continue turning toward Christ.

The Bible ends with a picture that should make every person who has ever wondered about the future stop and think.  Revelation 22:2 shows the Tree of Life in the city, and Revelation 22:3 tells us that there will no longer be any curse.  The curse that entered the human story in Genesis does not have the final word.  Sin does not have the final word.  Death does not have the final word.  Failure does not have the final word.  Christ does.

And for those who belong to Him, the story does not end outside the Garden, separated forever from the Tree of Life.  Scripture ends with God's people in His presence and the Tree of Life standing there . What humanity lost through sin is not merely remembered. God's redemptive work brings His people to the place where the curse is gone and life is restored.

So perhaps the better question is not, “Have I been perfect enough to deserve the Tree of Life?”  The better question is, “Am I still following Christ?  Am I still turning toward Him?  When I fall, do I return?  When He corrects me, do I listen?  When sin calls me, do I want to belong to sin, or do I want to belong to Jesus?”  If you can honestly say that you still want Christ, still desire His truth, still repent when you know you have sinned, and still want to overcome, then do not mistake the fact that you are still in a battle for proof that you have already been defeated.  A battle means there is something being fought.  Victory is not proven by the absence of every struggle.  It is revealed in whom you continue to follow through the struggle.

Jesus overcame the world, and He is the One we follow.  When the day comes that we stand before God, our confidence will never be that we somehow made ourselves perfect enough to deserve what He has promised.  Our confidence will be in Christ, the One who called us, forgave us, corrected us, strengthened us, and taught us to overcome.  The glory will belong to Him.

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Prayer

Holy Father, You are holy, righteous, merciful, faithful, and true. You alone are worthy of all honor, praise, glory, and worship. You sent Your Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, and He overcame the world. I worship You for Your mercy, Your grace, and Your faithfulness, and I thank You for making a way for me to come to You through Jesus.

Father God, I know I have not always walked perfectly. I have fallen, I have failed, and I have made wrong choices. Yet I thank You that my failures do not have to be the end of my story. Thank You that when I fall, I can turn back to You. Help me never to become comfortable with sin or make excuses for what You have called me to leave behind.

Teach me what it truly means to overcome. When I stumble, help me rise again. When I become discouraged, turn my heart back toward You. When I am tempted to give up, remind me that Jesus has already overcome the world. Help me continue following Him when the road is difficult.

Search my heart, Father, and show me anything that is keeping me from You. If there is sin I have defended, help me stop defending it. If there is something I have allowed to control me, help me surrender it to You. If shame causes me to hide from You, remind me that Your correction calls me back to You.

Help me remember that my hope is not in how good I can make myself. My hope is in Jesus Christ. Teach me to trust Him, follow Him, obey Him, and remain faithful to Him. Let my faith be seen in the choices I make, the things I refuse, the things I repent of, and the way I continue walking with You.

When I look at my past, keep me from believing that it is greater than Your mercy. When I remember my failures, remind me of Your forgiveness. When I wonder whether I am worthy, remind me that my confidence is in Christ and what He has done, not in myself.

Father, I want to overcome. I want to remain faithful to You and finish this life still trusting You, still loving You, still seeking Your truth, and still following Jesus. Do not let me mistake a struggle for defeat. When I fall, help me get back up. When I sin, help me repent. When I am weary, give me strength to continue.

When I think about the Tree of Life, help me understand the promise You have given. What was lost through sin will not remain lost forever. You have promised life, restoration, and the end of the curse. Keep my eyes on You and on the hope You have given through Your Son.

Holy Father, I worship You because You are faithful when I am weak, merciful when I fail, and patient when I struggle. Thank You for Jesus Christ, Your Son, who overcame the world. Help me continue with Him until the end.

Let my life be a testimony of Your faithfulness. Help me rise when I fall, repent when I sin, forgive when I am hurt, obey when You correct me, and keep walking when I am tired. Keep me close to You and faithful to Christ.

I place my life, my failures, my struggles, my future, and my hope into Your hands. Help me overcome, not for my glory, but for Yours. You alone are worthy, Holy Father, and I give You all the glory.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

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Don't take my word for this message. Like the Bereans in Acts 17:11, search the Scriptures daily to see whether these things are so. Open your Bible, study God's Word for yourself, and ask the Holy Spirit to guide you into all truth.  Don't simply accept my conclusions. If what I've written agrees with  Scripture, hold fast to it.  If it doesn't, let God's Word be your final authority.

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© AMKCH 2026

image done by my chatgpt at my direction.

If any of these people looks like you or someone you know, that is purely coincidental. They are not.

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