To Him Who Overcomes

Yesterday, one of the main focuses of the Bible study was looking at what Jesus has against the church: abandoning her first love, holding to false doctrine that leads to idolatry and sexual immorality, appearing alive but are really dead, and being lukewarm in the faith.  Despite these problems, there's good news, and that's what I want to focus on now.

Jesus gives us time to repent and return to Him.  And the rewards are many:

"To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." (Rev. 2:7)

"He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death." (Rev. 2:11)

"To him who overcomes I will give some of the hidden manna to eat. And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written which no one knows except him who receives it." (Rev. 2:17)

"He who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations... and I will give him the morning star." (Rev. 2:28)

"He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels." (Rev. 3:5)

"He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. I will write on him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God. And I will write on him My new name." (Rev. 3:12)

"To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne." (Rev. 3:21)

Meditate on these glorious promises!  However, before these promises come to pass, we must come to the reality that it's no small thing to overcome sin and all that is opposed to God.  It's one thing to read it and say, "Yeah!  I can do this," and another thing to experience life and know that many times we have failed to overcome.  The joy of the Lord is removed because of sin.  But where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.  Where there is evil in the world, good will always triumph.  Where there's darkness, the Light of the world will overcome it.  "In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world," Jesus tells us in John 16:33.

And in Revelation 12, we hear a loud voice speak from heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren [the Devil and Satan], who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.  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."

How do we overcome?  By the blood of the Lamb!  By the word of our testimony, that is by our preaching the gospel and what God has done in our lives.  By testifying to the truth of the Word of God.  It is God who does the overcoming for us, and we only need to fully surrender to, depend on, and trust in Him.

I hear the Savior say,
Thy strength indeed is small!
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all

Jesus paid it all
All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow