And the victory that conquers the world is our faith. Who indeed is the victor over the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
1 John 5:4-5


So how can we triumph over the “ways of the world”? The road to victory over the world is our faith. The early Church did not have an army, it was just a little community of non-belligerent and persecuted Christ-followers.  Yet, John tells them that they will and already have conquered the world. They have conquered the world because they have transformed it in the name of the one God they are begotten by.


Victory over “the world” does not require spiritual heroics or ascetic denial of creation. Instead, victory is found through faith in what Jesus is and has done; nothing else is needed. The word faith itself means “trust”, “confidence”, “assurance”. And the Gospels give us not only truths to believe, but also a person to trust: Jesus who is the God-man, the Messiah who has risen from the dead.


God has a plan for you and through obeying his commands you will master your life. Pray to be determined not by the deceptions of this world, but by the object of our faith, Jesus, the Son of God who was crucified and rose on the third day.