Imagine, for a second, that you had a huge scoreboard in your classroom tracking all of your wins and losses of each day. Two students were sharing nicely with each other during recess. WIN! A student threw a tantrum during snack time, because she didn’t get the same amount of goldfish as her neighbor. LOSS! You got through a whole lesson without any major disruptions. WIN! You forgot to send home a time-sensitive note to the parents. LOSS! Wouldn’t it be stressful to keep track? Sure, somedays it would be nice to see the “W’s” rack up, but to see a whole bunch of “L’s” on days that you know very well, that you are losing, would just be discouraging.

Without Jesus, our track record would be devastating. Everyday would be full of disappointment and despair. Thankfully, we get to live our days with Jesus. He has already conquered death and the Devil. We are victorious, through him.

In our reading for today, God is telling the Devil of the permanent punishment that chains him forever. The battle has been fought and God has come out with the “W”. Because of God’s amazing love and grace for us, we get to claim that “W” as our own. We don’t have to go through life feeling overcome by defeat.

Teaching can bring a lot of ups and downs. We are constantly working on training our students up in the way they should go. (Proverbs 22:6) The Devil, the world, and the sinful flesh, will constantly tempt and battle for defeat. This battle can drag us down and make us feel like our work is in vain but take heart, your work is not in vain. Those battles are meant to draw us closer to God. Our strength is only found in Jesus. What comfort to know that our victory does not depend on us. Our victory is complete. Even in our earthly losses, we can shout our battle cry: V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!