Overcoming (Rev 12:11)

I was listening to Overcome by Jon Egan and the Desperation Band.  The following verse is a bridge that’s sung over and over in the song.  As I was worshiping, the words of this verse really came alive and began to speak to me.

Revelation 12:11 (NKJV) “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.”

So how do we overcome?

1. The blood of the Lamb

This is the fulfillment of the law of God that breaks satan’s legal right and claim to us.  “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission. “  (Heb 9:22, NKJV) When we’ve been washed in the blood of the Lamb, we are forever the possession of God himself.  There is much that could be said here, but that’s another post.

2. The word of their testimony

This is where we can break the power of sin the enemy holds over us.  This is where the rubber meets the road.

Proverbs 18: 20-21 (NKJV)

²⁰ A man’s stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; From the produce of his lips he shall be filled.

²¹ Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.

What we claim – what we speak – is what will fill our stomachs.  Interesting picture as the stomach is essentially where digestion of our physical food begins after we eat.  So it goes with the words we speak.  When we speak words, we listen, we hear, we believe – we digest – those words.  “You are what you eat,” directly applies here!

It’s time to begin confessing the words of life.  Even if it’s not evident yet, speak it.  “I was a hypocrite, but God has helped me overcome.” or “I was an angry man; but God has helped me overcome.”  Speak what God has or is making you.

The word of your testimony is what breaks the power of sin in your life, but only if you’ve been bought by the blood of the Lamb.

1.  Are you legally God’s? This is critical and the first thing.  Without #1, you can’t do #2.

2. What is God helping you overcome in your life? Speak it OUT LOUD! verbalize it!  Hear yourself say it audibly!

Deaf (Gal 2:20)

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal 2:20, NASB)

As I was driving to G8 this morning knowing I was going to share the gist of yesterday’s post, I was really contemplating the effects of being crucified… being dead to myself.

Dead men…

• … don’t have any rights to get stepped on
• … don’t have any expectations to go unmet
• … don’t have any fears to bind them
• … can’t worry about yesterday, today or tomorrow
• … can’t compare their lives to those around them
• … can’t carry the weight of the world
• … can’t believe the lies of the enemy

… and as I was enumerating this list, God said something kinda funny but poignant.  He said that dead men can’t believe the lies of the enemy because “dead men can’t hear” and I kinda laughed, but realized that is HUGE!  This is a big deal because not only is my enemy a LIAR, when I am dead – I CANNOT HEAR HIS LIES.

This is a good test.  The devil and his minions are always lying about me, who I am, how I will be, what I will or will never be, etc.  When I can hear the lies – then SOME PART OF MY FLESH HAS CRAWLED OFF THE CROSS.

Daddy, may I always be deaf to the lies of my enemy and my spirit be in tune with yours.

Free Indeed (John 8:36)

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36, NIV)

How does this happen? How am I free “indeed”?

Our enemy is relentless (1 Peter 5:8). He is continually at us. He is the master deceiver. John 8:44 tells us his native tongue is falsehood. That is who he is. So every morning when we wake up, our enemy is looking for some deception for us to grab hold of; some falsehood of who we are; some fallacy saying that who we WERE is who we ARE; some cock-and-bull story about some bondage we’ll never shake, some addiction we’ll never kick, some fear we’ll never be rid of. ALL OF IT LIES.

Jesus said “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus said it. So I ask again… “How?” Enter Galatians 2:20:

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Gal 2:20, NASB)

Check this out. If I am dead. What power does anyone hold over me? What power does any thing hold over me? What power does any addiction, any fear, any bondage hold over me? None. If I am no longer alive, then I have no more worries to haunt me, no more fears to paralyze me, no more rights to be stepped on, no more expectations to be let down, no more LIES to BELIEVE.

That, my friend, is good news.

What really counts as unclean?

Acts 10 is a change of mind chapter for me.  It starts with Cornelius who is a gentile seeing a vision.  He was wide awake and saw something, not a dream.  He then sent men out to get Peter like the man in the vision said.  Peter went on to the roof to pray, most likely because he was a devout Jew and this was the time of day that they prayed.  As he is praying, once again in a wide awake vision, God the Holy Spirit speaks to him.  Peter sees a sheet (the sheet was carried down by 4 corners, maybe implying or referencing the four corners of the earth), full of clean and unclean animals and is told to eat.  The categories of animals it contains do correspond to a comprehensive Old Testament cataloging of the animal kingdom on land and in the air.    Peter is commanded to slaughter these animals according to the proper method and eat.  In the strongest possible terms and appealing to Ezekiel 4:14, Peter faces what he may view as a temptation or test of loyalty. He refuses, announcing his firm resolve to live in ritual purity: I have never eaten anything impure or unclean (Lev 10:10; 11:1-47; Deut 14:3-21). That is, I have never eaten anything that is accessible to every human being (NIV impure, literally “common”) but by divine mandate is forbidden to me as part of God’s holy people.  So, Peter is in a spiritual dilemma because such food is unclean, not only because God declares it to be such but also because if I eat it I will become ritually defiled, unfit to come into God’s presence in worship.  He was also in a moral dilemma because if he does eat he goes against what is his job as a Jew to abide by the rules and regulations set before him.  Peter was very good at following the Mosaic law to the letter and now what seems to be God the Holy Spirit telling him to do something other than his belief system or morals would normally talk him into puts him in a bit of a crunch. 

The vision’s purpose is 1. Proving a new freedom in association of Jew and Gentile is best accomplished if a mixture is present.  2. Divine revelation is required if Old Testament revelation and the layers of ethnic prejudices built upon it are to be set aside.  3. That the things Peter has once believed and followed are put aside and now no man is different.  Peter was rocked that day on that roof and later says that while he is talking to Cornelius and the rest of the once unclean gentiles.  What happens is amazing!  Peter breaks his Jewish custom that it is against our law to associate or visit with a Gentile (literally, “a person of another race”), he is not pointing to explicit Old Testament teaching as much as to Jewish custom.  Goes into this mans house and speaks the word of God.  Holy Spirit falls and everyone is baptized by Him. 

So, for me the question then becomes what is my idea of God? Am I following it because its biblical or because its customary for my time and my religion?  What is God trying to make clean in my life that I once thought was unclean and haven’t touched because of “my” beliefs?  What does God want to use to reach the gentile (lost) people in my life?  Do I need to break things that I once thought were wrong and walk into their house, or bar, or hang out spot and speak the word of God.  I don’t know maybe they will all get saved and then filled with Holy Spirit.  This was just a good time of self examination.  Don’t say I wont do that because that is unclean or customary but not biblical, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”