The Agony of Victory Today's Three-minute Bible Study Print, Study and Apply Title: The Agony of Victory------------------------- Date: 12/21/2002 Keywords: "defeat" "remember" "victory" Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. Passage: Judges 8:33-34* 33. No sooner had Gideon died than the Israelites again prostituted themselves to the Baals. They set up Baal-Berith as their god and 34. did not remember the Lord their God, who had rescued them from the hands of all their enemies on every side. Question How could this verse help you resist temptation?   Practical help For spiritual lessons, look no further than...the Superbowl. Over the past several years, no championship team — no matter how dominant in the big game — has repeated the next year. Sportswriters blame (or credit) free agency and salary caps for this parity in the NFL. But regardless of the reason, success seems to breed not more success but mediocrity or failure. Believers often see the same success-before-failure principle at work in our struggles against pornography. We can come off a stunning victory — say, ignoring a smut magazine when no one would be the wiser — only to deliberately seek out pornography the next day. The Israelites were no strangers to this phenomenon, as the story of Gideon's triumph followed by his quick forgetfulness demonstrates. But what to do? Perhaps a key to sustained self-control lies in our attitude toward victory and defeat. If we humbly accept spiritual victory as a gift of God, we're less likely to presume on our own strength. Likewise, if we humbly recognize that we may fail, we're more likely to get back up and try again when we do fall short. This attitude comes straight from Judges: "Remember the Lord [your] God." eXXit homepage Index of three-minute studies Copyright 2002 by eXXit *Scriptures are from The Holy Bible: New International Version, © Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved. --