Are You an Overcomer? God says you are!

Are You an Overcomer? God says you are!

Click to listen to song we heard in SS class

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z29olPjFbqg



"Overcomer" by Mandisa
Staring at a stop sign
Watching people drive by
T Mac on the radio
Got so much on your mind
Nothing's really going right
Looking for a ray of hope

Whatever it is you may be going through
I know He's not gonna let it get the best of you

You're an overcomer
Stay in the fight ‘til the final round
You're not going under
‘Cause God is holding you right now
You might be down for a moment
Feeling like it's hopeless
That's when He reminds You
That you're an overcomer
You're an overcomer

Everybody's been down
Hit the bottom, hit the ground
Oh, you're not alone
Just take a breath, don't forget
Hang on to His promises
He wants You to know

The same Man, the Great I am
The one who overcame death
Is living inside of You
So just hold tight, fix your eyes
On the one who holds your life
There's nothing He can't do
He's telling You

Who do you think you are? You are an overcomer. With Christ, we are all overcomers. Not maybe, not you will be; but you ARE. When you know who you are, you'll know what to do, and in Christ, you are more than conquerors. “……we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:.37

The Apostle Paul likes to use questions – “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)
If God is on our side, what can really knock us down? And then Paul tells us that “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all - how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? …….. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:32-35) And he went on to list down 7 different obstacles that all of us faces – at one time or another, in one form or another. And then more questions, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Romans 8:35)

Although this was asked 2000 years ago, nothing has changed much, right? We are very disturbed by difficult situations – trouble, hardship, persecution, famine - and we question God’s love.
When we are going through a famine – financially, materially, or emotionally, or when we are deprived of what we feel we need or what we want, we question His love for us. When we don’t see it, don’t sense it, don’t feel it, we conclude that we have been separated from His love. For some unknown reasons.

But Paul’s answer is NO WAY. No experience of any kind can ever change the truth of God’s love for us. He answers the question in the first word in verse 37 emphatically – “NO”, in all these things… He did not say God will REMOVE all of these, or IMMUNE us of any hardships in life. He said instead: “No, in all these things, we are MORE THAN CONQUERORS…”

Who do you think you are? Do you know WHO you are?
Because when you know who you are, you'll know what to do. Who are you in Christ? We are more than conquerors. We are OVERCOMERS... through Him who loved us!

Again the emphasis of this LOVE He has for us. You have a Lover! All of you have a passionate Lover, who is willing to die for you! If He is willing to die for us, He has no problem helping us with yur problems.

With Him around, we are MORE THAN conquerors. In Greek, “exceedingly more than” – exceedingly more than a conqueror! We do not just ‘barely make it”, it’s a landslide. We don’t just survive, we thrive! We are going to demolish the opposition.

Jesus: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 16:33)

Look closely, for us to be an overcomer, there needs to be something to overcome. Jesus says, “In this world you will have TROUBLE, but take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) (what’s in the world, trouble!). Through CHRIST. Only through the power of Christ can we overcome our troubles!

So the question is not, “Why? Why am I facing so many problems, so much trouble?”
That’s the wrong question to ask. The right question is, “Why? Why am I not overcoming them? Why am I so weak?” There is no such thing as an ordinary Christian? The fact that we are a Christian means we are extraordinary. The Holy Spirit dwells in us (remember the lesson last week?); we have the right and the privilege of a child of God; given the authority of the Name of Christ in prayer. We are exceedingly more than a conqueror in Christ! We are overcomers! That’s we you are!

So we should act like one. Believe and act like one. David acted like one. He was just a shepherd boy but he dared to challenge a seasoned warrior Goliath. He fought lions or bears when they attacked his sheep, and he won. “God delivered them into my hands!” he said. He was an overcomer.

Do we really believe this today? This isn’t what we are going to become. “Wait till the situation is better or once I get my life together…” No!! This is who God says we are! There is a ‘giant’ that no one else thinks we can beat (often not even us), but we can – with the power of Christ. We need to believe who God says we are.

We need to be encouraged you to fight in two ways:

(1) Fight with a Conquering Attitude
Don’t live with a defeatist’s attitude. Even before the fight, we’ve already declared you lost.
If we face situations with a faithless, wishy-washy mindset, we lose the battle in our minds before we ever lift our will to fight. We must believe in what God thinks about us. We must know who we are.. Faith-filled attitudes lead to faith-filled actions. The battle starts in the mind.

We need to gain control over our mind and feed it with the truths of God’s Word, else damaging thought patterns can influence our lives and rob us from victory, peace and joy.
We are not a victim of the circumstances. We are a child of God, greatly loved by Him and “can do all things through Him who gives you strength” (Phil 4:13). What do we do? “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Cor 10:5) We force every thought in our minds to line up with God’s Word, and throw everything else out!

David wrote in Psalm 18:29 “With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.” Nothing can stop me!
(2) Fight with Supernatural Weapons
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.” (2 Cor 10:3-4)

We have a strength that is not physical, not earthly, not of this world. We have DIVINE POWER to demolish strongholds. As a Christian, we need to know who we are and what we have.
We have the ‘power of God’ on our side. We fight with supernatural weapons.

Paul describes it this way in 2 Cor 4:7-9: We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.
We may have all kinds of hardships but there is this TREASURE in us. We have this treasure, CHRIST in us, to show that this all-surpassing POWER is from God, and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not… crushed. Perplexed, confused but… not in despair. Persecuted, but not abandoned. Struck down, but not destroyed. We can learn to overcome the fear of failure, criticism, incompetence, or the fear of what people think… WHY? Because we are OVERCOMERS. That’s what we are, by the power of Christ who dwells in us.

If there is something - an obstacle, an addiction, a relationship, a fear, something that is blocking you, is overwhelming you, you want to ask for God's help to be an overcomer. With His guidance, you can and you will. It doesn't mean you won't have trouble, it means you'll overcome the trouble. Tell the Lord right now.