{"id":4271,"date":"2015-02-19T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-02-19T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/dailyevotional\/?p=4271"},"modified":"2015-02-18T12:38:17","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T19:38:17","slug":"the-agony-of-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/the-agony-of-defeat\/","title":{"rendered":"THE AGONY OF DEFEAT!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>1\u00a0John 5:16-17 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #c40000;\"><em>\u201c<\/em><em>If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that.<\/em><em> All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yesterday I wrote about the thrill of victory. It is foolish to say that <em>defeat<\/em> is better than <em>victory<\/em>. A sports team or a nation\u2019s military force never enter combat with the hope of being defeated.<\/p>\n<p>I received a call of condolence from dear friends who were the pastor and wife of a church in St. Anthony, Newfoundland, Canada, when I was stationed there. They mentioned that they had made a trip back to St. Anthony last year. Their hearts were broken as they observed the lack of spiritual life that had once been so alive when they were there in the 1960\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>It reminded me of the individuals I have known and ministered to across the years. At one time they had a fervent spirit of service to the Lord\u00a0. . .\u00a0but, little by little, the cares of the world crowded in and the flame of spiritual commitment grew smaller and smaller. It is heart wrenching!<\/p>\n<p>All through the Bible we read of the same thing happening. David allowed sensuality to blind his eyes to his calling. Solomon was granted great wisdom, but he foolishly allowed foreign wives to bring their god\u2019s into his life, and his life became filled with vanities of vanities. Only by keeping our eyes on the Lord and obeying <em>His Word<\/em> will we maintain the thrill of victory &#8212;\u00a0 not the agony of defeat!<\/p>\n<p>May God richly bless you as you bless others by your words and actions!<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; &#8211; &#8211; Pastor Cecil<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>1\u00a0John 5:16-17 \u00a0 \u201cIf you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-john"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}