The Greatest Victory
Greetings, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to
explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly
Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. This
morning we ponder our lives as seek to understand the meaning of the greatest victory.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Greatest Victory
"For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: And this is the victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith. " First John, Chapter 5, Verse 4
Brothers and sisters, in our human struggles, we have the potential to achieve the greatest victory,
but we don't always share the enthusiasm for the great spiritual battle like we do for our purely
human ones. We shall try to cast some further understanding upon this great challenge to further
expand our comprehension of divine values and meanings.
Man's greatest victory is the conquest of himself. Love of self is our greatest foe. It reveals itself in
anger, pride, deceit, and greed. These four passion must be vanquished before we can overcome the
world, and we vanquish them by our faith in Jesus Christ, who overcame the world first. Let us
examine them. "Anger is a material manifestation which represents, in a general way, the measure
of the failure of the spiritual nature to gain control of the combined intellectual and physical natures.
Anger indicates your lack of tolerant brotherly love plus your lack of self-respect and self-control.
Anger depletes the health, debases the mind, and handicaps the spirit teacher of man's soul."
Pride is self regard. It is a self that has been cut off from its spiritual nature and placed itself at the
center of reality. Pride in an sense presumes to deify the self, and it is this perceived attack against
the self that launches the anger that opens the door to all the destructive power of the self. It is only
one step further for pride to the arena of deceit, that arena where the self now claims it can do
anything or be anything that it wants. "Of all the dangers which beset man's mortal nature and
jeopardize his spiritual integrity, pride is the greatest. Courage is valorous, but egotism is
vainglorious and suicidal." "Pride is deceitful, intoxicating, and sin-breeding whether found in an
individual, a group, a race, or a nation. It is literally true, "pride goes before a fall.""
Greed springs from one who has turned his back on his spiritual nature; he will never have enough.
Greed is the material manifestation of one who seeks to perpetuate himself by acquiring an endless
amount of things. But of all the funerals that we have observed, we have never seen a U-Haul truck
accompanying the deceased. In our efforts to gain understanding and insight into the greatest victory,
we should examine the life of Jesus and believe Him when he says that he has overcome the world.
Jesus has commanded us to be perfect even as the heavenly Father is perfect. The invitation has been
given, but so few of us sincerely respond to it. Is it that we love ourselves more than we love the
divine self? Do we really love anger, pride, deceit and greed? These qualities of self if unchecked
destroy everything true, good, and beautiful in human experience. Are we afraid to try, thinking it
is an impossible task? The only thing that we need is living faith, which is provided by the heavenly
Father. It is a beautiful sight to behold a person devoid of anger, pride, deceit, and greed.
In this battle for self conquest, there always attends the possibility of failure, but that is what makes
it such a great battle. The stakes are high, eternally high, and failure is a real possibility. But in the
contest between the self and the divine self, the divine self is the easy victor over the self. By the
Father's technique, these human traits are held in effective subjugation, being overwhelmed by
forbearance, understanding, tolerance, mercy, and love. These qualities represent self mastery and
foreshadows our overcoming of the world.
Self conquest fills us with the love of God, casting out all fear. Once we realize that we are one with
the Father, there cannot exist any fear of mortal death, for we have already become immortal. But
it is a glorious battle as faith wages war with doubt. At every minor conflict, doubt contests the faith
of the mortal. Doubts eventually succumb to persistent living faith. Living faith steadily elevates the
soul until it reaches the heights of the divine spirit, where oneness is achieved.
Such a battle is in truth the greatest victory, for it is supreme, eternal, and final, resulting in a
material self delivered from the material chains of anger, pride, deceit and greed. And this is made
possible by dedicating ourselves to doing the Father's will, as Jesus taught us.
This concludes today's message on understanding the meaning of the greatest victory. We hope you
find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time,this is Dr. James Perry
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done!
The Greatest Victory
