Overcoming in Life and Death

Overcoming Death And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. Revelation 12 v 11 The biggest challenge of life is to overcome the enemy of our souls. If we have handled all the other challenges of life and failed in this, we have failed indeed. If we do not we succumb to death and we know that death annuls all our accomplishments, extinguishes all our hope, all our relationships. If we believe Jesus is the Son of God, we overcome the second death which is an experience of continually dying without it ever ending and the fear of death that makes us love this short life on earth as if this is the only life we have to live. Scripture says that through fear of death, we are held in spiritual bondage all our lives. We overcome the enemy and such bondage by faith in the blood of the Lamb provided by God to all mankind even as He provided a lamb for Abraham to sacrifice in place of his son Isaac. When the Word of God is tested in our lives, it becomes the word of testimony. These are the two sides of the coin- faith and the Word- that purchases for us eternal victory over death. This uni-verse emphasizes the importance of both faith and the Word –in –action in our lives. The irony is that if we love our lives in this world, we loose it. If we hate it, we keep it. Not just that, we receive the reward of the crown of righteousness at the appearance of Christ. Jesus confesses our names to God the Father as those who belong to Him. He writes our names in the Book of salvation of the Lamb for it is His prerogative to give salvation to whom He chooses. He gives us a new divine name to signify that we are a new creation redeemed by His blood. He rewards us for our righteous deeds. The American President is the most powerful living person on the planet at least for now. He can use force in virtually any part of the planet to impose or execute his will subject of course to constitutional restraints and safeguards. The Bible is the spiritual constitution of the Kingdom of God. According to this constitution, every believer in Christ is more powerful than the US President as he is liable to be overcome by sin and death but we have overcome sin and death. The US President swears his allegiance to the constitution with a lip level commitment while we have a heart level commitment to Christ and His Kingdom. We are given power over the nations by virtue of our faith. Indeed, greater is He that is in us by faith than he that is in the world. Jesus says, “ Rejoice and overcome, for I have overcome.” We do not overcome and then rejoice as a military victor after a triumph. We rejoice as Jesus has overcome sin, tribulation and death and by our faith in the Vicar of our souls, we too overcome. Prateep V Philip