Victorious
Yesterday, I celebrated my 10 year spiritual birthday! I get just as excited about that birthday as I do my real life birthday. I was born April 21, 1989, but I will eventually die. However, November 20, 2002 I was born into eternal life and I will never die from that birth. I normally have a huge celebration in my head, and get really excited, and wish I could bake myself a cake and party hard. Typically I'll just sit in my room and ponder on the Lord and how much I love Him, and thank Him for saving my life. Last night however, I got to hang out with my mentor which is always a happy thing. My Salvation has been something I've struggled with a lot, I have to study really hard and keep learning how secure I am in Him.
Since giving Jesus my life on that night with His help I have overcome a lot of things. I'm still overcoming, and will continue to be an overcomer till Jesus comes back to get me, or I die, whichever one happens first.
When Jesus saved me He gave me the gift of songwriting. In all my 10 years of songwriting I have never written a song on my Spiritual Birthday, until yesterday. I had been asking the Lord to give me something to write, so the word "victory" came up in a conversation yesterday and that was it! How appropriate too, to write a song titled, "Victorious" on a day 10 years ago that made me Victorious! I just didn't know it yet.
So today, I've been pondering on the meaning of overcoming and being victorious. Awesomely enough, because Jesus is so awesome and makes things flow like this, it will tie into the whole series of Faith Believing Obedience. I love it when that happens! Go God!
When you look at the Greek word for overcomer which is "nikao" in verb form, and "nike" (swoosh, just do it), in noun form, it means to conquer, to have victory, superiority, and to defeat. This form is used on John 16:33 when Jesus tells us that He has overcome the world, meaning he overcame Satan, death, and the world's systems. When someone is saved, they are removed from the grip of Satan and hell, and reserved for Heaven. Everyday we are continually living in victory over the world, and in a practical angle, though positionally we have conquered all, we need to claim and exercise that victory day to day.
We are overcomers by the act of believing, which results in our new birth. Faith is the result of new birth, and if you are truly born again you will continue to believe (John 8:31). This is a total trust in God, but our faith must also be one that is fundamental. It's not enough to just believe that Jesus is the Christ, but that Jesus the man is God incarnate. We are about to celebrate His birth and His first coming this Christmas season, do we really really really believe that Jesus is God's son, not created by God, but begotten out of God. This is what 1 John 5:1 states, and this belief is not referring merely to intellectual attainment or enlightenment, but a wholehearted acceptance of everything that Jesus is. I struggle with this a lot. I have tons of head knowledge at times, getting it my heart is sometimes difficult. Belief and faith is essential to the overcomer because victory is based on believing through faith that Jesus is who He says He is, this is what characterizes us as overcomers. He offers a life where we don't have to victims of death, of Satan, and even of this world's systems, but victors! This is not to be confused with victory through healing, thought it can happen, healing IS NOT OUR ULTIMATE VICTORY! Just like if we had elected another president of the United States of America, he would not have been our ultimate victory.
We live in victory when we obey. We obey Christ through faith, out of love which is motivated from the heart. A faith believing obedience is love and it leads to victory. For every small act of obedience kills the desire for us to sin. We don't have to be slaves to our self-destructive desires. (Still working on that!) We can die to ourselves and follow God's lead into victory and abundant life. Obedience sanctifies. Not only did Jesus redeem my past through faith and belief in Him, He is still my Redeemer today helping me overcome every struggle I will face today if I listen and obey. If I don't I make it worse on myself.
I have studied Revelation a lot this year, especially the 7 churches. As God opened the heavens to John, and revealed His heart to John about the churches each letter included a promise to those who would obey His instruction and be overcomers. These promises were not only for the true believers of that day, but also apply to every believer throughout the ages. Remember our God is a God of the ages. He is unchanging, His promises do not change. He is the Ancient of Days. I encourage you, and I will do this too, since there are 7 churches and 7 promises, one for each day to take one promise each day and write it out, thank God that you are an overcomer. What are some particular things that remind you of these specific rewards?
THE PROMISES OF THE OVERCOMER:
Revelation 2-3
1. The tree of Life=The promise of Heaven, eternal enjoyment of God's presence in His paradise.
2. Eternal Life. The overcomer dies to live forever.
3. The Bread of Life. Heaven is where Jesus is.
4. The Power of Life. Power over nations
5. The Book of Life. Clothed in white, and confessed before the Father. The one who saved me, keeps me. I need to claim this one A LOT!
6. The Name of Life.
7. The Throne of Life. We get to sit with our Daddy on His throne.
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