Changing Your Default Setting, Part 5

John 16:33  In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

I John 5:4-5  For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 

Old Default Setting

“I am a victim.”

This is a more common default setting than we might think. Hardly anyone says this out loud, but many of us harbor the thought somewhere in our hearts at one time or another. We almost certainly have folks we know who wrap themselves in this kind of identity. The reality is that we’ve all been victimized at one time or another. Some of us have been abused, or libeled, or cheated. The sins of others have affected us all.

But being a victim is not a matter of what another human has done to us. It’s an identity issue—it’s how we see ourselves. If you are a Christian, you may have been victimized, even at length. But if you’re a believer, your primary identity has been changed, no matter what anyone has done to you.

You’re now an overcomer, not a victim. That’s simply because we’re in Christ, and He has overcome. Victims push people away to make sure they don’t get sinned against. Overcomers don’t enjoy the rejection and abuse, but with Christ, are no longer stopped by fear of them. Victims filter nearly every experience through that filter, distort reality by putting themselves at the center, and are always on guard. Overcomers can relax, knowing that they are in His arms, and that not everything is about them or is going to hurt them.

New Setting

“People have sinned against me, and will sin against me in the future. But if I am in Christ, I am not a victim, but an overcomer through the faith He gave me. That is my true identity!”

Prayer: Lord, help me and my friends that struggle with this discover the reality of our new identity in You. Please strip away all the wrong thoughts and actions that went with seeing ourselves as a victim. Help us to continue healing from where we’ve been victimized, but help us know that You changed our identities when we came to You.