Want to be an overcomer? How about becoming MORE than an overcomer? It’s available to you and it’s your real life in Christ.
Join “The Power to Prevail” 3 Day Challenge this week with Graham Cooke: https://challenge.grahamcooke.com/prevail
Transcript
Today, we are going to take a “Posture of Peace” by becoming more than a conqueror.
Posture is a short, audible fist bump to remind you, God is with you in everything. Together, we’re going to be emboldened to take a daily Posture of perfect peace.
So all this week we’re talking about the power we have in Jesus to prevail in every single circumstance. I read last episode, in Episode 121, from Romans 8, where Paul talks about how we are more than conquerors. We’re gonna continue that conversation today. I’m gonna be reading from Colossians 2:13-15. And it says, “When you were dead in your sins, and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled, the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He being Jesus, made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.”
You can never lose your real life in Christ, but you can lose your awareness of it. And this often happens when we allow the circumstances of life to completely overwhelm us, and steal our focus. When we become more aware, more astonished by what is happening around us, than the one who is living within us. But when the nature of God is our greatest reality, when we are fully persuaded, like Paul in Romans 8 talks about. Fully persuaded that nothing can separate us from who God is for us. When our full focus is on being alive with Him, then any negatives, any hardships in our lives, serve only a signpost, that point to who God wants to be for us, and who we are becoming in Him.
Do not miss this, what God is offering us is Himself. His unchanging self, so that we too can become unchanging in our nature and character, no matter what is occurring, we can become as constant and consistent as He is. You become a conqueror, you win in battle when the enemy, satan, knows that no matter what he does, you are going to use it to discover something new about the nature of God. His goodness, His kindness, His faithfulness, His peace, His joy, and you are going to become that also, that’s when you become an overcomer. And eventually, the enemy won’t even want to challenge you, because he knows that you know how to use everything he throws at you to your advantage. That’s when you become more than a conqueror.
This is what happened with my battle with anxiety. I’ve struggled with anxiety for years growing up, and then there was this reprieve, there was this relief, there was this overcoming of anxiety, and I lived for years without being under the weight of it. But then in my late 20s, it stirred back up in my life, and almost more intensely than what I had dealt with before. I was having panic attacks, and constant anxiety attacks, and I lived under the weight of worry always. And there was this temptation to believe the lie that I was starting from scratch again, that I had done something to deserve this, that whatever territory I gained earlier in my life, when it came to anxiety, I have lost that victory. And in the real lie, the temptation was to believe that I was never healed in the first place. And that there was no such thing as true victory over anxiety. But thankfully, the Holy Spirit and wise counselors led me back to the truth.
The reality is this. I had overcome anxiety, I had gained territory in that area of my life. But the enemy though he is stupid, he is strategic. And he’s not gonna give up without some kind of fight. And so he was poking, and he was prodding to see if you could take that territory back. So I had to stand firm to maintain that territory. But it wasn’t just so much being a sitting duck, and sitting still all the time. It was standing firm in the truth, but it was also moving forward, and discovering, “Okay God, who do you want to be for me now?” That perhaps you couldn’t be for me before, because I wasn’t aware that I needed you in this area of my life, if that makes sense. And so I began to do discover a new depth of peace like never before. I began to have fresh revelation, deep revelation of what perfect peace actually was, and who the Prince of Peace was for me, His power and His presence that were constant in my life. And so I continued to maintain that territory, but I began to advance, and take new territory and new territory. And I became, I gained more victory over anxiety, more victory than I had before. I was an overcomer.
And then it got to a point where I could sense, I’m in a season now where I sense that the enemy is so depleted by me, so depleted by my partnership with God in this journey to peace, in journey of discovering perfect peace, that he won’t even poke and prod anymore. He won’t even try to mess with me in this area of my life. I have become more than a conqueror when it comes to anxiety and panic. I have become more than a conquer, I have determined in my heart that anything that the enemy throws at me, I will use to my advantage. I will use to discover even more about the nature of God, and not just discover more about the nature of God, but become more of that as well. I don’t just have peace, I am with peace, the Prince of Peace, and I am becoming peace. His peace is now mine. And you know what? I’m taking people with me. So what is it for you? Maybe it’s anxiety, maybe it’s panic, maybe it’s depression, maybe it’s a physical illness. Maybe it’s an anger issue that you’ve dealt with, maybe it’s an addiction, what do you want to become an overcomer in? And what have you become an overcomer in? And then what you want to become more than an overcomer, more than a conqueror in? It’s available to you.
This is this is your real life in Christ. This is the point of hardship. This is the point of negative circumstances. It points us to who God is for us, and who we are becoming in Him. We are more than conquerors, you are more than conqueror. And you know what, let’s determine in our hearts today, whatever the enemy throws at us, whatever territory he wants to take from us, we refuse to give it up to him. We’re going to continue to maintain the territory he has given to us. We’re gonna continue to move forward and take more territory. We’re gonna deplete him so that he doesn’t even wanna mess with us. And you know what? We’re gonna take people with us.
The promise of perfect peace is found in Isaiah 26:3, In Hebrew. It is shalom, shalom, meaning complete wholeness, nothing missing, nothing broken. This is who you are in Jesus, because of Jesus. You are a living testimony of Jesus’s ultimate win with every step you take today you’re putting Jesus’s victory on display and satan’s defeat on replay.