MORE THAN CONQUERORS

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us”, Rom.8:37 

There is more to a conquering life than we may come to think of and believe. People carry within themselves the very power to mingle with defeat, to share in an old life by fighting it or merely to have a great deal of the kind of zeal which suits an old style of living and an old idea of overcoming. To fight defeat is not the same as living and experiencing a victory. In fact, the New Life Jesus REALLY grants is what should fill one’s days and mind so that there is nothing else to be concerned about which, by concern, comes to choke the word and the Life one is supposed to be able to live by at all times. A conqueror fights to overcome, while a "more than a conqueror" lives another life.

Jesus did not call upon us to overcome sin – He called on us to be conquerors in ourselves by ourselves, having a life within another which never takes notice of sin itself, whether it be against of for it somehow. If one marches against sex, one thinks sex; if one loves sex, one becomes entangled in it. And it can be said of any other sin, whatever sin we may come to think of. Sin is like bees: if you go against it, you have messed with it, and if you love it and do it, you mess with it too. There is no real victory in fighting sin – there is a real victory over any sin by fighting Jesus to the extend of forgetting all else. I mean by this that, we need to wrestle with God and not with sin. To get the New Life and to live by it does not take sin into consideration at all.

We should mark that Paul did not say that one becomes a conqueror outside hardships or trouble at all. In them we are to live another life. “In all these things” (as he puts it unto us) just mean we have another spring to drink from at all times and that spring does not share the water to drown problems and troubles, but rather gives any of us another life to stick and live by whatever the circumstances are we may come to find ourselves in. If we preach and people criticize our preaching, we preach the same way the same message. If we are praised and held up in esteem, we preach whatever God gave us to preach about as well and pretty much the same way we would do any other time.

A life of any conqueror means just that he does not have to choose where or when he shall live by it. One should not be spotted fighting sin or circumstances, doctrines or wrongdoing. One should rather be found getting into a new life all the time, getting fully acquainted with its means, its ways, its power its stillness and quietness in all praise and holy fear. Whatever makes us think sin does not come from the New Life – even if the New Life is marching through another kind of life against sin itself. Besides, the New Life is never there to go against sin – it is there to be lived by, whatever we may come to find in our way. The New Life has a life of its own and it goes straight ahead, whatever it may find in its way. “Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil”, Prov.4:25-27.

It is so true that sin entangles any of us. But, it is not less truthful that fighting sin may involve us in a fight away from real life too. One should take full notice that the Life Jesus grants is the surety against any sin or towards any kind of holy feature whatsoever. To march and invest against sin, or to walk uprightly towards holiness never guarantees a victorious life to anyone. To have and breed a New Life is sinless and it is what makes people live truly and faithfully. The acquaintance with a New Life is what grants us the security and surety against any sin whatsoever. One should find a New Life, more than fighting an old one. A life of a conqueror is not a life of fighting defeat – it is a life which moves on uphill or downhill the same way with the same victorious life within.

Whatever hinders any of us to have this Life for real, should be forsaken, confessed or put in the light where God and His life can easily deal against it. Nevertheless, it is never fighting which grants us any of the victories of God – it is having a victorious life within which does. Let’s have it for real, since there are many who claim to have it, who truly believe they have it and lack in all of it still. Let that Life be for real and you will find yourself being more than a conqueror in any circumstance you may come to find yourself in. It is not that hard to live and stick by that life, but it is very easy to do something else which seems to be lively and right in our own eyes. Fighting sin is not the perfect way. Finding real life is what makes us have victory against all sin, however indirectly it may be achieved. Let God be yours so you will be God’s too. Live in Jesus for Him and He will surely live in you for you and everyone else around you. Amen.

José Mateus
zemateus@msn.com