Imagine you’re watching the Super Bowl this week.

Peyton Manning has led the Broncos to an incredible, hard-fought victory. The confetti is raining down. Fireworks are exploding. The team is gathering around as Manning hoists the Lombardi Trophy in the air.

An interviewer steps onto the podium and asks the legendary quarterback to give his thoughts on the game.

And instead of giving an emotional, tearjerking speech he says something like this:

“You know it’s great to win another Super Bowl and all, but boy we sure did make a lot of mistakes out there tonight. I’ve really got to work on my passing skills and our defense was pretty weak out there. I just can’t stop thinking about that interception and all those dropped passes. We’ve got a lot to work on tomorrow morning.”

You might think Peyton Manning or any football player to be insane if they just won the Super Bowl and said something like that.

An interview like that would be normal after any other game during the season. That’s because no matter what happened there’s always another game coming up the next week. Even after you’ve won you’ve got to be doing more to get better.

That’s not the case with the Super Bowl. That’s not the case when you’ve won the ultimate victory.

When you’ve won the Super Bowl there’s no need to worry about your mistakes out on the field anymore. There’s no need to worry about fixing your problems during the next practice.

Even if the path to the championship was imperfect it doesn’t matter anymore. The trophy is in your hands.

You can forget about all the mistakes. You can let go of all the errors. The season is over. It is finished. The only thing you ought to be doing in that moment is celebrating.

You might think it would be a ridiculous scenario for a football player to miss out on celebrating the ultimate victory. But it’s something many of us (including myself) do every single day. 

You see when Jesus died on the cross to rescue us He won the ultimate victory against sin. In His final breath He uttered three important words: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

He wasn’t just saying His work was done. He was saying the battle was over. There would be no rematch. Sin and death had lost the battle.

If we have a relationship with Christ than we are not just victors in this battle, we are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37).

Because of this we ought be living in the victory formation everyday.

Because of Christ’s sacrifice the victory has been won. The game is over. It is finished.

That means letting go of our mistakes. That means not beating ourselves up anymore over our faults.

That means not worrying about whether or not God will forgive us for our latest failure and celebrating our victory everyday. That means forgiving ourselves because we’ve already been forgiven.

Of course that doesn’t mean our work in this life is over. We don’t just retire because of this victory. We are still called to go out and be disciples to the ends of the earth.

But we can do the work of this world confident in our ultimate victory. We don’t have to carry the burden of our sins any longer. We don’t have to fret over little mistakes. We don’t have to feel inadequate or insecure.

We can live as champions knowing that no matter how imperfect our lives are, we are guaranteed victory.