He Who Overcomes

He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.

Revelation 21:7

God declares of ‘he who overcomes’ that he will ‘inherit all things.’  He also proclaims that.  ‘I will be his God and he shall be my son.’  These promises are desirable in every way.  The question arises, ‘how may I be such a person who overcomes?’  This overcoming cannot be anything essentially worldly or carnal.  It cannot be anything that would leave us in the state and condition that the next verse describes, ‘But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.’  What then will make us overcomers?  John defines this for us in I John 5, ‘For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.  And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.  Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?’  To overcome requires faith, and not just faith in something or anything.  It requires faith in Christ.  When John speaks of believing that ‘Jesus is the Son of God,’ he is implying all that goes with that.  This is to believe that Jesus is God Who has come in the flesh; that He has lived perfectly, died sacrificially, risen powerfully, ascended visibly, intercedes perpetually, will return gloriously, will judge righteously, and reign eternally.  To believe ‘that Jesus is the Son of God’ is to embrace a whole God, a whole Bible, and a whole Christ.  It is to rest by faith in His finished work and to imitate Him as the outward demonstration of the faith we have in Him.  This is what overcomes the world.

Our Glorious, Living God,
we rejoice that in Christ,
You have made us overcomers.
We praise You that day-by-day,
the work of the Holy Spirit in us
is conforming us to His Image.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning