All tagged overcoming

Have we overcome the earth? There are men and women in this world that have so much wealth that they couldn’t possibly spend it in a dozen lifetimes, and yet they continue to be obsessed with it, protecting it, hoarding it, and focusing on making more. They feel like it gives them power, that they have overcome the world, and are its masters, but in truth their wealth has ensnared them, and owns them. Jesus came into this world born of meager parents, and walked across it with little more than the clothes on his back, yet He was free of poverty, because He had truly overcome the world. When we finally see as He saw, that what matters in this world is loving God, winning each soul’s deliverance from sin, and then returning it to our Heavenly Father, then we too will have overcome the world, and will have glorified God… Can we honestly say that we have overcome the world?

We suffer in this world, and sometimes do so unto death, and the dark one would have us believe that our physical struggle, and eventual death, indicates a spiritual defeat, but that is not true. We overcome the world in the fact that despite the pain, suffering, and even death we experience in it we love, and are loved, we know God and are strengthened against all fear, and Jesus abides in us... filling us with His peace, and a calm beyond all measure. Just as none could take the life of Christ without His laying it down, so it is with the Christian who’s life can only be forfeit if he yields it in fear and defeat... not the body which is meant to die, but the soul which is eternal.

For some people the day after Christmas is like falling off of an emotional cliff; the exciting and often hectic days of preparation for Christmas are over, and the emotional and spiritual exhilaration of Christmas Day with all its gifts, family, food, and worship, return to routine daily living once again. Some of us are glad for the rest, peace, and quiet, but others fall into a deep depression. The good news is that Jesus is there for us regardless of how we react, and to help us through each and every day and emotion we feel.

What does it mean for us to have overcome the world? Does it mean that we have succeeded in gathering to ourselves all of its riches? Does it mean that we command its inhabitants to serve us? Does it mean that our will is imposed upon it? Or, does it mean that our faith allows us to conquer every negative influence that the world attempts to infect us with, and that in our spiritual health we will not be drawn away from loving God, Jesus, the Spirit, and one another?