Victory In Our Heart

By Debra J Collins

Can you imagine a life with no stress, worries, or cares? A life where you could be as carefree as a child? Sounds like a fairytale, doesn’t it? But the truth is, it can be your life. Our Heavenly Father has provided everything we need to live this kind of life in Christ. In this book, Debra walks you through freedom in several of the most

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Feb 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781640887183

Book preview

Preface

What inspired this book was intercessory prayer at the church I attend. I always ask God what he wants me to pray for or about; on this particular day, it was victory in the hearts of the people, and it carried on the next week. I felt the presence of God on the subject and asked him what he wanted to show me about it. His response was, My people need it, and it’s your next book.

As I began to write the book, I began to experience victory in different areas of my life and truly believe those who read this book will also. Freedom is a wonderful thing, and my prayer is that all who read this will experience the same freedom I have.

God wants all his children to be free from every chain that binds them—be it habits, addictions, sin, or sickness. Jesus paid for all of it, and the victory is ours! Praise you, Jesus!

Acknowledgments

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

What Is Victory?

Victory is the thing God puts in our hearts that lets us know we win in every situation. We can’t lose if we put our trust in him. He is always for us, never against us. By God, I mean the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who created all there is and whose plan has been being played out since the beginning of time, and the God who will finish his plan just as he said he would. That God, the true God. All through God’s word we see his people coming out victorious against their enemies, especially in the Old Testament, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t winning in the New Testament, our stories just aren’t written in it on paper, but they are in the books of heaven. The book of Acts is still being written today, but if someone tried to write it all down, it would fill volumes of books.

John 21:25 (NIV)

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

If the whole known world at that time could not have contained all the volumes of books that would have been written about what Jesus did during his short three-year ministry here on earth, can you even imagine how many it would take to write about all the deeds and victories of all the Christians that have lived since him or even just for the last fifty years? It would be astronomical.

In our everyday lives, we face obstacles in our path, and some in our minds are huge and scary, but no matter what it looks like, how hopeless it may seem, we can and will win if we trust him. Our God is working behind the scenes working things out for us even though we cannot see it. For instance, Moses and the Israelites coming out of Egypt; the Lord showed me he was at work in the unseen world like this. I saw God from the lower chest up, and he was super huge; in front of him was the exodus, the people, and all they had with them were so small in comparison. With one hand he was keeping Pharaoh’s men back, and with the other, he was parting the Red Sea (Exodus 14:5–29). The people saw the cloud by day and the fire by night (Exodus 13:21–22), but they didn’t see it the way I described it. If they had, would they still have been afraid to go in and take the Promised Land? I can’t say with certainty.

Exodus 13:21–22 (NIV)

By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

Exodus 14:5–29 (NIV)

When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services! So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. He took six hundred of the best chariots, along with all the other chariots of Egypt, with officers over all of them. The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, so that he pursued the Israelites, who were marching out boldly. The Egyptians—all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, horsemen and troops—pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near PiHahiroth, opposite Baal Zephon. As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than Moses answered the people, Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still. Then the LORD said to Moses, Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen. Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. He jammed the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, Let’s get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt. Then the LORD said to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen." Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea. The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived. But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

We as children of God tend to struggle with so many things concerning the message he sent us so clearly in his Word. We see the victories behind us, praise him for them, and even tell others about the loving-kindness God showed us in our situations; yet when that new mountain appears in our path, most wonder, will God get me through this, it’s pretty big?

Matthew 17:20 puts things into perspective.

Matthew 17:20 (NIV)

He replied, Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.

Jesus said all the faith you need to move a giant mountain is the size of a mustard seed. A mustard seed, I am told, is one of the smallest there is. For a moment picture yourself as that small seed and your situation as a giant mountain. Pretty intimidating, isn’t it? That’s how we tend to see that new problem that arises in our lives, but God! To God, that mountain in our path is a mustard seed because he is bigger than any mountain, problem, or situation that could come our way, and we need to see him that way. I once saw myself standing before Jesus; he was so huge that I couldn’t see past his toe, and even that was taller than a building. Let’s take another moment and picture that same picture you saw before, but add God into the picture; see yourself speaking the Word of God to that mountain and the super huge fist of God flatten it as you’re speaking his word in faith. It isn’t that we control or dictate to God, NO, but he said if we just had a little faith, nothing would be impossible for us. He moves heaven and earth for us when we believe in his love for us. God’s love can be hard to comprehend if we haven’t known real love in our lives. We get our parental instincts and love for our children from Poppa God, and because of that, we will go the extra mile to protect our children and try to give them the best life we possibly can. That is how we are loved by the God of the universe, the creator of all there is. Unfortunately not all experience the love of a good parent. Many have been abandoned by their parents in many ways—be it by abandonment, addictions, or always working; whatever it may be, it leaves children feeling alone and unloved, but we as God’s children should never feel that way because he promises to never leave us nor forsake us. Unlike human parents, God can and does keep his promises, all of them.

Hebrews 13:5–6 (NIV)

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. So we say with confidence, The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?

It is through victory that our joy is made strong and the peace in our heart rules undefeated. Even when things don’t go the way we thought or hoped, victory in our heart is what takes us further on down the road knowing God is with us always; everywhere we go, he is right there with us. God is always our victor even when it’s hard to see. His love is so pure that all he can want for us is the very best. If anything contradicts that, it is not of God but is of man’s wisdom or doctrines of demons. Read the Bible; it is full of God’s love for us. The fact that he sent his Son Jesus to pay the price for our sins is a huge waving flag that screams, I love you! When things don’t look like what we thought they should or hoped for, remember we don’t always see what he sees. Think of your own children; don’t you at times see things in their lives they do not? Yes, and it is the same with God, only he is much better at it than we are. He can see farther down the path than we can and sees all that is on it and how to overcome it. So when things look different and do not seem to be what should be happening, if you have submitted your life to him and put your faith in him and his love for you, then you can know that he is working everything out for you. He sees the bigger picture. People thought Jesus was going to rule as king when he walked his earthly ministry, but God had a much bigger plan! Yes, Jesus will rule as king, just not as a man but as God. His reign as king will be far more than it would have been as a man. He will reign as king from Jerusalem for one thousand years, and everyone on earth will know who he is, and it is coming soon; there are some things that have to take place first, like the last worldwide move of God that will usher in the rapture of the church and then the Great Tribulation.

The Rapture and Tribulation

The Rapture of the church is the event that takes place described as Jesus coming in the clouds, and the saints who are dead in Christ will rise first, then those who are alive will rise and meet Jesus in the clouds. This event could take place any day; there are many signs from the Bible that