But sometimes the victory doesn't seem very important once we've achieved it. For instance, I couldn't remember who won the World Series a couple of years ago. So I went to the internet and printed out the whole list of teams who competed in the World Series dating back to the beginning. Not only was I surprised at who had won, I was surprised at who was playing against the winner in each of the contests. The victory just wasn't all that important. (If it was, I certainly would have remembered more details - any details!)
It's funny because I seem to spend so much of my day telling my children to quit fighting over stuff that doesn't matter. But it matters to them. And they want to win - all the time.
So how do you get across to them that they need to focus on what is really important? You see, right now, it's all about them, their wants and desires, their ego. I want them to focus on the needs and feelings of others - considering others more highly than themselves.
The reality is that you can't win every game. And maybe it wouldn't be good for you to win every game. But, in the end, you have to win the big battles. In terms of Revelation 2 and 3, you have to be an overcomer. Part of being an overcomer and winning the crucial battles is knowing which battles are important enough for you to spend your energy. You can spend and waste your energy on battles that don't matter in the end (like the World Series?) and then not have enough energy left to fight the battle against the pressures of this world to pull you away from a relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ.
There's so much here about which we can talk. Suffice it to say, for today, that I want you to win. I want you to learn to be a winner for all the right reasons. What reasons could those possibly be? I'll talk about that next time.