Scripture Text: James 1:1-8……James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad: Greetings. 2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
We’ve all heard that old expression “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. That sounds like a good idea, yet sometimes life hands people rotten lemons and no amount of sugar can cover up or disguise their rottenness.
Trying to make life’s lemons into lemonade by yourself, leaves God out. But as Christians, we can be an overcomer to lifes lemons if we let God lead us in every thought and action.
God makes the sweetest lemonade. We can see that as we read stories in the Bible of how God lead many Bible heros to be victorious. Even when it looked bleak for each of them, they were victorios with God’s help.
We need to always remember that God wants His children to be victorious in every way. He expects us to become overcomers thru HIm.
Revelation 3:5…..He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.
Revelation 2:7……”He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.”‘
These verses are telling us we need to act victorious and not whine and be scared of everything. As Christians, we must be victorious!. We are the child of the King!
How can we be victorious overcomers? How can we turn defeat into victory? How can we take life’s lemons and turn them into lemonade?
We have a choice .We need to make up our mind that we can be overcomers! As Christians, God promises we can be over comers through the power and promise of God.
Philippians 4:13….I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. There is the secret…..through Christ who strengthens me……..through Christ who strengthens me…….through Christ who strengthens me…….I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Even though our lives may be full of lemons, we must always remember to thank God for all the tremendous ways He blesses our lives and provides for us.
Sadly, many Christians have tried to make the lemonade by themselves and in the end, they fail. Jesus tells us we cannot do or be anything without Jesus
John 15:5……I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.
We must put our faith in God? Are we putting Him first by believing him and trusting in Him by putting on a Christlike attitude. By having a faith and trust to overcome anything thru His power and grace.
If we put on a victim’s mentality it is a loser’s mentality and hard to overcome.
II Timothy 1:12…..For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.
Christ has come to make victors out of victims. We should remember that at one time we were all victims of the devil and of our own sins. By reciving and then obeying the Gospel, the Lord has made us victors!
I Corinthians 6:9-11……Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
By the love, the grace, and power of God, He has promised to turn our sourest, most rotten lemons into the sweetest, most refreshing lemonade, if we will let Him.
It is up to you. Will you be a victim or a victor?
I Peter 1:6-7…..In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials. 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
II Timothy 1:12…..For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.
Ephesians 3:20…..Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.
Hebrews 5:12-13…..For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Mitzi Moody 