saved | 1 Way 1 Truth 1 Life

Be More

Posted on April 7, 2014 by wearemorethanconquerors837

Have you ever loved someone so much you would do anything for them? Have you loved someone so much you would risk getting hurt for them? Have you loved someone so much that you would give it all for them? Have you ever loved someone so much that you would go to battle and die just to win that battle for them? Have you been willing to give everything you have because you believe the one you love is worth more than you are?

Many warriors fight for these reasons. They go to war for their country, friends, family, and other loved ones. They are willing to go into battle and risk their lives for loved ones. Losing limbs or life is worth it to them. Conquering the enemy to free loved ones says the loved ones more important than their own life.

When warriors come back home from war their entire family is victorious. Even those who did not fight on the front lines share in the victory. The mighty warriors defeated the enemy and now the family has them home. While the warrior was fighting, the family may have been fighting battles at home. Living while that loved one is away at war is tough. Many challenges arise, but through the warriors bravery, the family battles on because they know how important they are to the warrior. Sadly, sometimes that warrior doesn’t return. He dies in battle while conquering. He conquerors for them and the family is still victorious through the mighty warrior.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can beagainst us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” Romans 8:31-36

The warrior loves for the people he fights for. He gives all of himself. This is what God did for us. He gave himself. He took our place because He loves us. We conquer because He conquered. Because Jesus overcame we overcome. Because Jesus defeated death, we have eternal life. But there is more to it than just a victory.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:37

We don’t just conquer because of Him. We are more than conquerors. We are seen by Him as more. We are so loved by God that He became a man and was tempted as we are tempted. We are so loved by God that we are worth dying for. We are so loved by God that we are worth suffering the worst torture and death in the history of the world. We are so loved by God that He suffered all of this and still is the victor and our Savior. We are so loved by God that, once we believe on Jesus Christ, nothing can take Him away.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

When you are a warrior you fight not just for yourself, you fight for who you love. When you are a warrior you fight with passion for someone more than you. You conquer for those who are more than conquerors. Jesus conquered the grave for us because we are more than conquerors through Him.

Do you believe you are more than a conqueror? Do you know Jesus? Is He your Savior?

If He isn’t, He can be. If you think there is more to this world than what we see, pray for Him to show you. If you are asking, the Holy Spirit is already be at work in your heart. He will show you.

If you feel you don’t deserve the love of someone who died for you, you don’t. It is by grace Jesus forgives. It is why He died. He said “It is finished”. He conquered not for the perfect, but for the broken. He conquered for me, the biggest of all sinners. And if he conquered for me, He definitely conquered for you.

but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

If you feel like you have done too much wrong to deserve forgiveness, you haven’t. It is not about doing or deserving. But we can turn to Him. He died knowing what I have done. He felt what I have done. It was nailed with Him to the cross. Now I am no longer a slave to sin, but I am free as a slave to Christ. You can be too. You can be “whoever”. I pray you are.

For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 3:16-17

You can be more than a conqueror.

The Gift

Posted on December 6, 2013 by wearemorethanconquerors837

It’s crazy. It is insane. Sometimes I can’t believe that I actually believe. The story is unbelievable on so many levels. At one point in time I did not fully believe. At one point in time I did not fully understand. Now I believe. Now I understand. What has changed? What is different about me that allows me to understand and believe something that by our own human thinking is impossible?

The answer is in the very book I didn’t want to read. The answer is in the very book I thought was just like every other book written by men. The answer is in the Holy Scripture.

In my second year of Spiritual life I can give a decent defense of my belief in God. For those who don’t know, apologetics is a term used for defense of faith. My apologetics argument is educated, but what does that prove? Will that win a heart to Jesus? No! Is that how I was won to Jesus? No! While I do believe, and Scripture commands, that all believers should give a defense of our faith, and it shouldn’t be “because faith is believing in something I can’t prove,” it does not truly explain why we came to believe.

When Jesus was with His disciples, performing many miraculous things, people who witnessed them still didn’t believe He was the Messiah. After He fed five thousand people with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish they still wanted to know what sign He would give them. He showed them several times many signs and miracles yet they still did not believe.

So where does my faith come from? Where does the faith of a believer in Christ today come from? It comes from the same place faith in the Lord has always come from. It comes as a gift from God.

In John 6, after the people follow Jesus Capernaum, the day after He fed five thousand, they question Him about the bread and Jesus told them He was the bread of life. He said He was the manna from heaven. They grumbled about it because they did not understand and “Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” John 6:43-44

God does not invite people to be saved. He commands them. —R.C. Sproul

Jesus is saying the faith that the followers lacked had not been given to them by God. He had not drawn them, like drawing water from a well. Do I know why God chooses some people and not others? Do I know why I was chosen? No and No. There is an answer, given by the Apostle Paul, to why faith has to come from God.

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. Ephesians 2:8-9

God gives us faith and saves us through grace so we do not boast. There is nothing we can do to save ourselves from our ourselves. Jesus did it all on the cross. We believe because God opens our eyes, our ears, our minds, and our hearts to know Jesus. No one can believe what we believe on our own without God giving it to us.

This is not to say the faith of a believer will not be tested. This is not to say there won’t be times when you question what you believe. I often come across things, in Scripture and life, that make me question my faith. Let’s not get questioning confused with doubt. When I question my faith I search deeper for answers. For example, I was watching a video on youtube put up by an atheist, and she was questioning a Scripture in the book of Deuteronomy. So I did some research and found an explanation for the verse that showed she was misinterpreting. The questioning made me search out God more and made my faith stronger. I believe this is the design of Scripture and our faith relationship with the Lord. As for the atheist, perhaps she doesn’t see the Scripture for what it is because she has not been enabled to by the Lord yet.

So this brings me to a possible dilemma for the believer. If my faith is a gift that can only come from God, then why am I called to preach the gospel to all nations? Why would anyone witness and give their testimony? Why have missions around the world and go on mission trips? The answer comes down to, because we are commanded to. We are the vehicle God has chosen to bring the Gospel to the world. The world needs to hear. We are just the planters of seeds. God makes the seeds grow. Sometimes the soil isn’t ready. Sometimes the soil will never be ready. Sometimes it takes a little more fertilizer. We do not have the ability to know when the soil will be ready. We are just called to plant.

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:3-5

Since we do not know who exactly will have ears to hear and eyes to see, we must tell everyone. Even people who, in our human minds, may not be the people we think God wants to save. This often makes me think of Jonah. God told him who to speak to and he refused. He ran the other way. But Jonah couldn’t run from God. Neither can we. All we can do is obey and be so very thankful the He enables us to believe.

If you are reading this and feel you have not been enabled by God to believe, but you want to, ask God right now to change you. Ask Him to make your heart turn to Him. Ask Him to make you ready. The fact that you are asking should show you He is working in you.

I did not believe but then He changed me. It took me on my knees asking Him to change me. He was already there when my knees hit the floor.

Thank you Lord Jesus for giving me ears to hear and eyes to see and a heart to love.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16

You are “whoever”.

Mistakenly Defined

Posted on June 3, 2013 by wearemorethanconquerors837

We all make mistakes. No one is perfect. We may strive to perfection and on the way we may find excellence. In the end perfection in this world may never be reached. It is pretty evident that we will mess up somewhere in our lives. It may be at work. It may be in our personal relationships. It may be in our finances.

Wherever you mess up be careful to not let it define who you are. We are not defined by our worst moment. We can, however, be defined in our worst moment. But we do not define ourselves. It has already been done.

In our mistakes, in our sins, in our lost moments, our Creator is our way out. He defines who we are. He already created us in His image.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26
(Side note: Notice use of “Our” referring to the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.)

We are created in the image of God. The problem is we fell. We had the choice to stay perfect but made the choice to sin. Now we have a sin nature that keeps us from seeing we can be better. It can keep us from seeing we are created to be better. When we mess up the enemy wants the mess up to define who we are. The enemy will use it to his advantage to keep us away from God.

Yes, even our little mistakes may beat us down and keep us from God. When we chase perfection in our lives sometimes we have a tendency to rely only on ourselves to get it right. We start to worship the work to get to perfection. We devote our time to making things better. We devote time to self-improvement.

This is what the enemy wants. He wants us to put our time into improving ourselves for ourselves. He wants us to stay worried about our mistakes and our sins. He wants us to feel we can never be good enough.

But God says otherwise. He gave us His only Son and when we believe in Him we are more than conquerors. We do not have to be slaves to our mistakes and our sins. We do not have to keep beating ourselves up because we do not feel perfect.

His love makes us perfect. His work on the cross took our sins. We can now call on His power and turn from our sins. His Holy Spirit is with us. Allow it to work on and through you.

I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
And my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14

God made us wonderfully. Our souls know it and when we sin our souls know it is not right. Jesus saves us from that. Our souls long for Him and when you let Him in your life you will have the power to turn from sin. It will not be easy, but on your own it will be impossible.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:20-23

You can be victorious over your mistakes. You can be victorious over your sins. This has been made possible because Christ Jesus is the greatest victor of all.

Will you let Him in?

Will you let Him be your savior?

Will you put your trust and your faith in Him?

“Jesus fulfilled His part. Now it is time to do ours.” – Josh Conn