It has been said that after this New Year’s Eve, every pronunciation of the year “2021” will sound like an admission that “2020 won.”  While I admit 2020 seems like confirmation of Jesus‘s words in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble," the encouraging reality is in the second half of that verse: “but take heart! I have overcome the world.“ This year has brought division, discord, disease, and depression, all evidence of a competent destroyer, which seeks to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Still, you and I have the assurance that 2020 did not win, the world doesn’t win, the destroyer doesn’t win, and whatever struggle you are facing today doesn’t win either. Jesus did not say that he may someday overcome the world, or that he will overcome the world, but that he has already overcome the world. It’s done. “It is finished” (John 19:30). The great tribulations we endure here on Earth serve to refine, prove, and prepare us for our divine graduation, so long as we do not give up (Galatians 6:9). 

Let this next year be the “twenty-twenty-first” year of our Lord rather than an announcement of defeat. 2020 did not win! Christ Jesus is still Lord! He has overcome racism, hatred, disease, isolation, grief, and hopelessness. In this world those things will still exist, but you and I can take heart, because they don’t win.