How To Live An Overcoming Life
Many people profess to being a Christian, they read the Bible and see how victorious the believers lived back in Bible times. They read about the martyrs listed in Fox's book of martyrs, and know inwardly that they would not really be able to give up their lives in that way, why is there such a difference today as in times past?
Every book that this sort of professed believer reads, seems to bring the conviction upon them that they aren't like the people that were described in the holy book they were reading. If it's a book about prayer, they know that their prayer life falls very, very short of what is described in the book. If it's a book about witnessing, they realize that they don't have that sort of “luck” when around unbelievers, they don't even know what to say.
Now when I talk about Spiritual books I am not talking about the 'run of the mill' type of books turned out today, I am talking about books written at least before the nineteen hundreds, by Sanctified men.
To understand why we need to be redeemed read the tract called Why do we need to be saved? What are we saved from? This tract goes over the reasons and nature of our salvation. The tract you are now reading shows us how to acquire victory in our walk with Jesus.
Both John the Baptist and Jesus started their ministries with these words, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The word repent is greatly misunderstood today, in fact, it is rarely used anymore. We are told this word means to 'turn from your sin,' this is a good start but let us understand what Jesus meant when He said repent, to turn away from our sin is to stop sinning. Today this must sound ridiculous to most professing believers, because for years a false Gospel has been preached in main-stream Christianity, but stop sinning we must. We need to see our lives in the same way God sees our lives, because all that which comes from self, and natural reason, however wonderful it appears on the outside, can have no better a nature within, than self-love, self-seeking, self-esteem, and fleshly wisdom, which are those very works of the devil in us, of which Christ came into the world to destroy. (Mat 1:21)
We must understand this, all sin, death, damnation, and hell is nothing else but this kingdom of self, or the various operations of self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking, which separate our soul from God, and end in eternal death and hell.
We need to be sanctified, but today most people haven't any idea of what it means to be sanctified. Today people believe they are sanctified the very moment they make some half-hearted commitment to God. They believe this because they were told that at the moment they “accepted” Jesus Christ they were automatically sanctified. Let's look at what sanctification really is.
Sanctification is a term frequently used in the Bible. Its simple and primary meaning is to be in a state of consecration to God. To sanctify is to set apart for a holy use. A state of sanctification is a state of consecration. This is plainly both the Old and the New Testament use of the term.
How do we become sanctified, how do we continue to live a life wholly sanctified to God? Adam was wholly sanctified to God when he was first created, but he went into self and out of sanctification when he disobeyed God and ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil. Another name that tree could be called is “The tree of self will!”
The secret
We truly need to see the wickedness of our own hearts, not until we understand how evil and wicked we really are will we turn in disgust from our selfishness and self-will. This is repentance, when we see and hate the wickedness of our own hearts! This is why Jesus said, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23 One of the first requirements for us to become disciples of Jesus Christ is for us to deny ourselves. To truly deny ourselves we must deny our own thinking, and our reason, for how can a man deny himself, without denying his reason, unless reason is not a part of himself? We must die to ourselves in everything, or we have not denied anything.
This is what the Apostle Paul meant when he said "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." The Devil cannot stop us from entering the Kingdom of God and nether can anyone else, so what causes the tribulation? It is only, and always ourselves, and nothing else.
We want Heaven and the Kingdom of God and to be called a Christian, the tribulation comes in when by necessity we must deny ourselves. You will find great resistance when you try to deny yourself something you really like, when this happens you will see clearly that you have a fallen selfish nature that must be denied at all times.
God wants to reverse something in our lives and the Apostle Paul will show us what it is, Romans 6:17-18 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
Understand this clearly, you will be a slave, either to your fallen nature (old man) or to God. The only thing that we can have a choice in, is who we will be enslaved to, who our master will be! To be enslaved to our old man (old nature) is really to be enslaved to the world. If you would like to know the evil nature and effects of a worldly spirit, it is this; it will always unite you to a worldly, earthly nature, which will cause you to strongly desire the things of this world, that will not, and cannot, satisfy you. On the other hand being enslaved to God will unite us with the Holy Spirit of God and espouse, and unite us to Christ, God, and heaven. This results in us being content regardless of what is going on around us, regardless of what we have, or do not have!
Paul also brings out another behavior that we should imitate, it is found in 1 Corinthians 9:27. But I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified. Paul watched his life, he knew that he was enslaved to God for he said “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Peter also was aware of this fact for he said, “Act as free men, and do not use your
freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bond slaves of God.” 1 Peter 2:16.
Victory
The first step in receiving the victorious Christian life is repentance, without truly repenting of being the boss of your own life you will be like the sow, after washing, always returning and wallowing in the mire. Most people when the thought of repenting comes up, think about some great and damning sin that they are under bondage to practice. They tell the Lord that they won't do that anymore, and for the most part they are sincere, tears flowing, heart broken before God's throne, but in a few weeks or days they are having problems with that same sin again!
What is wrong here? It is really very simple, they were sincere but did not look in faith to the God of all power, the God of all grace, and went in their own strength and their own power to conquer the enemy of their soul. You must understand the biggest enemy of our soul is our selfish self, yes just look into the mirror and you will see the real, and powerful enemy of your soul, YOU!
We always fail in doing right because we try to do right with our flesh, and our flesh will always fail. It's like wondering why our chickens keep disappearing, when we have put a fox in charge of the hen house.
Romans 6:5-7 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.
The Apostle Paul is telling us here the same thing that Jesus said in John 3:3-7 You see, in order to be born again, we must give up our first life, we must deny it, we must die to it, or we can't be truly born again.
In 2 Peter 1:4 we are told “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” We are saved by faith, we must believe the Gospel and all of the promises we find in God's Holy Word! Here is one my favorites. Ezekiel 36:24-30
24) "For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land.
Here the Lord is telling us that He will take us out of the world (nations) and bring us into the Kingdom of God and it will be our land
25) "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.
God will cleanse us from all of our filthiness! That word filthiness means sin! But that’s not all, God will remove all of the idols in our life! He promises to do this because He and He alone is our Savior. If God does not deliver us from our sin no one else can.
26) "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."
Then God promises to remove our heart of stone. The Bible uses the word "heart" to refer to man’s will, the place we make our decisions (the decision to obey or disobey God.) Notice here that God refers to a stony heart, this means a stubborn, rebellious will (heart). We won’t stop being rebellious and stubborn on our own, so the God of love removes this rebellious (heart) from us and replaces it with a moldable (heart)
27)"And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances."
And now after heart surgery, we are ready to receive the most precious gift anyone could possibly receive! God’s Spirit. (And I will put My spirit within you.) But God knows that this is still not enough. Look at the next part of this promise. In verse 27 "And cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments, and do [them]."
Yes, God will cause us to walk Holy!
28) "And you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God.
God is telling us that we will abide in Him in the Kingdom of God, and we will be called His people.
29)"Moreover, I will save you from all your uncleanness; and I will call for the grain and multiply it, and I will not bring a famine on you.
30) "And I will multiply the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field, that you may not receive again the disgrace of famine among the nations.”
Here God is telling us that He will bless us and not allow any curses to fall upon us. God has committed Himself, by His Holy promises, to cause us to obey Him! What more need we ask of Him. This is the faith part, will you believe God? Will you take Him at His word? Will you place your faith in Him, now, today, this very moment? Please take note of the fact that God is the one who does all of these things!
Many people after reading this will say to themselves “This is good, yes, this is important, someday I will do this. If this is your response, listen very carefully and you might be able to hear God say . . . .
Thou Fool
2 Corinthians 6:2 "At the acceptable time I listened to you, behold, now is "the acceptable time," behold, now is "the day of salvation."
Hebrews 2:2-3 For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard,
Philippians 2:12. So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; Don't put off this decision to resign yourself entirely into the hands of God, this might be the last warning from the Holy Spirit to you!
An important piece of advice
This advice comes from the Son of God, our one and only Savior, He said . . .
Luke 13:23-24 And someone said to Him, "Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?" And He said to them, "Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.