Thanks Be to God - All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2024

"Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" ... Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:54-55, 57

Thanks Be to God
Is it possible to overcome the power of death? Certainly not, if it depends on us. However, it depends on God and on the Lord Jesus Christ, as His Word confirms. Through the power of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has annulled the power of death, since He has rendered it inoperative (2 Tim. 1:8-10). He also made powerless the one who had the power of death, that is the devil, and He delivered us from the fear of death (Heb. 2:14). He reduced to nil all the powers of evil (Col. 2:14-15).

When did He do this? On the cross, in His extreme weakness, the Lord Jesus triumphed over all these powers: praise God! And so now, He can give us the victory when, in our weakness, we trust Him so that we can do His will. "Thanks be to God!" Thanksgiving to God is a mighty weapon against the enemy. It also will help us to be overcomers in our pathway for and with Him.

Yes, the Lord wants us to be overcomers, triumphant in the same world where He has been crucified. There He had the victory, which was confirmed in His resurrection from among the dead on the first day of the week. After forty days, God lifted Him up and had Him sit down at His right hand (Heb. 1:3). Can there be any greater victory? "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15:58). We are left in this scene as His representatives that He may show His victory as a powerful testimony in and through us, in grace. When He comes again in power, every knee will be forced to bow. Now He invites you to do this willingly, freely.

Alfred E. Bouter