overcome | Done with Religion

Posts Tagged ‘overcome’

Dead Men Walking

Posted in christian living, tagged Christ, Christ follower, crucified, follower, grace, law, overcome, sinful nature, temptation on May 8, 2014| 3 Comments »

Colossians 3:5, 9-11 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry…Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him, a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all…

As followers of Christ, our old nature has been killed and buried. We are new creatures in Christ. We no longer have to serve sin because Christ has set us free.

Our old sinful nature was crucified with Christ. It was dead and buried and now a new, holy and righteous creature has risen and is alive in Christ.

We have Christ living in us and we can rely on His power to overcome temptation by His strength. Because of Him we can live a life free from the guilt and punishment of sin. The sinful nature is still in the ground and a new person now lives as one with God. He put His Spirit within us and made us His dwelling place.

When God looks at us, He sees His child that has been changed by the grace of Christ. We are now holy and righteous in His sight. Not because of anything we have done, but because of the work Christ did. We no longer have to work to earn salvation. After accepting the grace of God, we no longer have to strive to keep the law. The law was good in that it was a tutor to lead us to Christ. The law was fulfilled by Christ and now that we are His, we live by faith in the grace He provided.

In Christ, we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. There is no upper level or lower level child of God. The is no Jew or Greek, male or female, clergy or laity. Each one of us make up an equally important and functioning part of the body. We are all saved by grace and living under the headship of Christ. Christ is our all in all.

May we continue to grow in Grace and let Him have the preeminence.

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Innocent but not Naive

Posted in christian living, tagged evil, innocent, overcome on January 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

(Romans 16:19 ….but I want you to be wise in what is good, and innocent in what is evil)

The word innocent is described in the dictionary as free from moral wrong; without sin; pure.

Sometimes we read this verse and think we aren’t supposed to know much about evil. Obviously we aren’t to participate in evil, but to be able to be wise in what is good, we do need to know about evil.

Jeremiah 4:22 says “My people are fools; they do not know me. They are senseless children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil; they know not how to do good.”.

To me this says that it is more natural for us to do evil. We were born into a world of sin and our natural man will more times than not go for evil over good. Through Christ, we are new creatures in Him, but our old evil nature never disappears during this life on earth.

In the military, the enemy is studied so that proper plans can be made to overcome and defeat them. It’s the same in the spiritual world, we need to know how the enemy moves and works against us.

We need to remember that the evil nature is still within us and we need to be constantly aware of where that can lead. We need to understand our enemy and plan ahead on what we need to do to overcome the temptations when they come.

God’s words tell us in Philippians 4:8 – Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell (think) on these things.

I truly think our biggest battles and obstacles are fought in our mind. We need to be aware of evil and what it can do, but we need to focus our thoughts on the good.

Only through Christ can we overcome, only through Christ can we do good. By spending time in God’s presence, praying and reading His words can we learn what is good and have the power to overcome evil.