Devotionals

HE MARKS OF AN OVERCOMER BY Henry Jaegers

by Henry Jaegers
05/29/18
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HE MARKS OF AN OVERCOMER 

 BY Henry Jaegers

 And they overcame Him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death. (Revelation 12:11)

 This verse describes the jubilant cry of those who escaped from the false accusations of Satan.

 I. The blood: The foundation of our faith.

 To understand the importance of the blood we must first understand the holiness of God. God cannot allow anything that is defiled to enter into his presence. Since man is already contaminated by sin, he is disqualified from entering heaven. But our great loving God made a way to solve this problem. He sent His son Jesus, who lived a perfect life to die and shed His sinless blood in order to make a way to bridge this gap between a holy God and sinful man.

 God accepted the shed blood of His son as a payment for my sin and He offers the gift of eternal life to those who receive this gift. The result is: my sin is forgiven, covered, removed, forgotten, and if we could measure the extent of God's forgiveness, it is removed as far as the east is from the west. (Psalm 103 tells us What God has done with our sin.) My faith is based not on how well I can do but on what God himself has done. The blood is the foundation of our faith and brings confidence to our standing before God.

 II. The word of their testimony: The reality of faith

 Having salvation involves more than having forgiveness. When we become Christians, God implants into our hearts the potential to live the Christian life. He places the indwelling Holy Spirit who gives us assurance, wisdom, guidance, protection, a hunger for the word of God and the power to reflect the person of God in our life. Jesus describes us as the lights in the world of darkness reflecting the world the person of God through our life and words which are backed up by that life. Without the presence of the Holy Spirit. we do not have the power to live the Christian life. The Holy Spirit living within makes our faith real and effective. Our testimony is a testimony of the reality of God and the proof of our faith.

 III. They loved not their lives unto the death. The conviction of Faith

 There is a difference between conviction and personal preference. Convictions are things that we would die for, whereas personal preferences can change with the situation. The early martyrs experience the reality of the resurrection and knew without a doubt that it was the truth; they persevered through hardship and sometimes death without wavering because they had conviction. Paul the apostle expresses it perfectly by these words: "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38,39)

 Do you Bear the marks of an overcomer?