THE KEY TO VICTORY!
We are all recovering sinners…while we have been forgiven, (that is if you have received Christ as Savior and Lord) we are certainly not immune to the daily struggle with sin and temptation…The Apostle Paul knew what the conflict was like. “What I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing…” (Romans 7:19)…
But even though we battle with sin, God has given us everything we need to overcome it…(Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good…”) (1st John 5:4-5, “For everyone born of God overcomes the world…This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith…Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God…”)
Jesus never promised that obeying Him would be easy…But the hard work and self-discipline of serving Christ is no burden to those who love Him…And if our load starts to feel heavy, we can always trust Christ to help us bear it…
(Matt. 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls…For my yoke is easy and My burden is light…”)
A yoke is a heavy wooden harness that fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen…It is attached to a piece of equipment the oxen are to pull…A person may be carrying heavy burdens of, (1) Sin, (2) excessive demands of religious leaders or family members, (3) oppression and persecution, or (4) weariness in the search for God…
But even though we battle with sin, God has given us everything we need to overcome it…(Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good…”) (1st John 5:4-5, “For everyone born of God overcomes the world…This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith…Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God…”)
Jesus never promised that obeying Him would be easy…But the hard work and self-discipline of serving Christ is no burden to those who love Him…And if our load starts to feel heavy, we can always trust Christ to help us bear it…
(Matt. 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest…Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls…For my yoke is easy and My burden is light…”)
A yoke is a heavy wooden harness that fits over the shoulders of an ox or oxen…It is attached to a piece of equipment the oxen are to pull…A person may be carrying heavy burdens of, (1) Sin, (2) excessive demands of religious leaders or family members, (3) oppression and persecution, or (4) weariness in the search for God…
Whatever the case maybe, Jesus wants to help each of us carry the heavy load this worldly life offers…If we come to Him because we are weary and beat down with the burden of life, He will give us rest…He will help us carry the heavy load and help us each learn more and more about Him and His strength…His strength can help us stand up under the burdens of this world and prepare us for the eternal rest that is to come…
The key to victory is found in Jesus Christ, but for now I want to focus on three key words found in Romans 6: 3,6,13…The words are, Know, Count, and Offer…
First, Paul was saying that we have to know, to comprehend and believe what is right and true…We cannot deal effectively with our sin until we are able to acknowledge its presence, to understand its implications in our lives and to access the weapons we need to combat its influence…
Accepting Jesus’ once for all sacrifice makes us right with God the Father, but our Lord also gives us daily victory over evil…His death broke the stranglehold of sin, its controlling and dominating power over our lives…(Verse 1/2)…And because Jesus came back to life again, He in turn offers us new life that will triumph over the old (Verses 4/8, 4“We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” )…8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him…”)
Now don’t misunderstand what this means, I am not in any hurry to die physically but I also know that one day it will happen…What this means is that death no longer hold mastery over Jesus, because He was freed from its grip forever, vs. 9—and now He extends to us the incredible benefit of enjoying the same freedom…We just need to know where to look for it!
Next, Paul says that we have to count, or consider or reckon, ourselves dead to sin, to internalize that truth, to assimilate and act upon that reality… Simply acknowledging that Jesus’ death and resurrection can set us free from sin is not enough…We have to do something about it…We must refuse to allow sin to reign in our lives…We must regard ourselves as, “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ,” (Romans 6:11…)
As we acknowledge the stunning reality that we are saved from sin because Jesus died for us, we go on to live by faith in the light of this truth…As we realize that we are saved by the Grace of God, because Jesus paid in full our payment for sin, and then count ourselves dead to sin but alive in Christ, we will become truly alive to a new quality of life lived in intimate relationship with God…
Finally, we are called to offer ourselves…As we struggle with sin, we can choose to yield ourselves to the Lord…The apostle Paul urged us as believers, “In view of God’s mercy, to offer, (Our) bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is (Our) spiritual act of worship,” (Romans 12:1)…
This means submitting to the Holy Spirit who lives within us…and who builds a Christ like character within us…
This yielding, this offering up of our will as obedient to the will of God, is not something we do only once…It must be an ongoing practice on our part…
What is it that we can offer God that He cannot already provide Himself…? Nothing…!! But because we are His children and He has called us by His name, He wants us to offer all that we have to Him to be used to His glory…
When Scripture says we should offer our bodies it means just that…
1) Our minds…We should offer Him our mind because if we don’t give it to Him, there is not much He will so with it…when we offer our minds to Him, He will, in the due process of time, give us the mind of Christ…
2) Our eyes and ears are part of what is offered…Ask yourself this question…What do your eyes look at and what do your ears hear…? Because what you look at and what you listen to is what you will become…
3) Our tongue is offered because it is part of our body even though it is very small…
The key to victory is found in Jesus Christ, but for now I want to focus on three key words found in Romans 6: 3,6,13…The words are, Know, Count, and Offer…
First, Paul was saying that we have to know, to comprehend and believe what is right and true…We cannot deal effectively with our sin until we are able to acknowledge its presence, to understand its implications in our lives and to access the weapons we need to combat its influence…
Accepting Jesus’ once for all sacrifice makes us right with God the Father, but our Lord also gives us daily victory over evil…His death broke the stranglehold of sin, its controlling and dominating power over our lives…(Verse 1/2)…And because Jesus came back to life again, He in turn offers us new life that will triumph over the old (Verses 4/8, 4“We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” )…8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him…”)
Now don’t misunderstand what this means, I am not in any hurry to die physically but I also know that one day it will happen…What this means is that death no longer hold mastery over Jesus, because He was freed from its grip forever, vs. 9—and now He extends to us the incredible benefit of enjoying the same freedom…We just need to know where to look for it!
Next, Paul says that we have to count, or consider or reckon, ourselves dead to sin, to internalize that truth, to assimilate and act upon that reality… Simply acknowledging that Jesus’ death and resurrection can set us free from sin is not enough…We have to do something about it…We must refuse to allow sin to reign in our lives…We must regard ourselves as, “dead to sin but alive to God in Christ,” (Romans 6:11…)
As we acknowledge the stunning reality that we are saved from sin because Jesus died for us, we go on to live by faith in the light of this truth…As we realize that we are saved by the Grace of God, because Jesus paid in full our payment for sin, and then count ourselves dead to sin but alive in Christ, we will become truly alive to a new quality of life lived in intimate relationship with God…
Finally, we are called to offer ourselves…As we struggle with sin, we can choose to yield ourselves to the Lord…The apostle Paul urged us as believers, “In view of God’s mercy, to offer, (Our) bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is (Our) spiritual act of worship,” (Romans 12:1)…
This means submitting to the Holy Spirit who lives within us…and who builds a Christ like character within us…
This yielding, this offering up of our will as obedient to the will of God, is not something we do only once…It must be an ongoing practice on our part…
What is it that we can offer God that He cannot already provide Himself…? Nothing…!! But because we are His children and He has called us by His name, He wants us to offer all that we have to Him to be used to His glory…
When Scripture says we should offer our bodies it means just that…
1) Our minds…We should offer Him our mind because if we don’t give it to Him, there is not much He will so with it…when we offer our minds to Him, He will, in the due process of time, give us the mind of Christ…
2) Our eyes and ears are part of what is offered…Ask yourself this question…What do your eyes look at and what do your ears hear…? Because what you look at and what you listen to is what you will become…
3) Our tongue is offered because it is part of our body even though it is very small…
James chapter three, verse 5/6 /8, tells us, “Like wise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boast…consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark…The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body…It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell…” 8) but no man can tame the tongue… It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison…"
James compares the damage the tongue can do to a raging fire—the tongue’s wickedness has its source in hell itself… The uncontrolled tongue can do terrible damage…Satan uses the tongue to divide people and pit them against one another…Idle and hateful words are damaging because they spread destruction quickly and no one can stop the results once they are spoken…
We dare not be careless with what we say, thinking we can apologize later because even if we do, the scars remain…A few words spoken in anger can destroy a relationship that took years to build…Before you speak, remember that words are like fire—you can neither control nor reverse the damage they do…
In verse 8, Scripture says, “ no man can tame the tongue...”
A young man asked me the other day, “If no human can control the tongue, why bother trying…”?
Even if we may not achieve perfect control of our tongues, we can still learn enough control to reduce the damage our words can do…It is better to fight a fire than to pour gasoline on an existing one or go around starting new ones…
We dare not be careless with what we say, thinking we can apologize later because even if we do, the scars remain…A few words spoken in anger can destroy a relationship that took years to build…Before you speak, remember that words are like fire—you can neither control nor reverse the damage they do…
In verse 8, Scripture says, “ no man can tame the tongue...”
A young man asked me the other day, “If no human can control the tongue, why bother trying…”?
Even if we may not achieve perfect control of our tongues, we can still learn enough control to reduce the damage our words can do…It is better to fight a fire than to pour gasoline on an existing one or go around starting new ones…
Remember we are not fighting the tongues fire in our own strength…The Holy Spirit will give us increasing power to monitor and control what we say, so that when we are offended, the Spirit will remind us of God’s love, and we won’t react in a hateful manner…When we are criticized, the Spirit will heal the hurt, and we won’t lash out at our offender…
But on the other hand, if we know what damage the tongue or words can do, we should realize how much good they can and will do if we offer them to God for Him to use as He sees fit…Our words should be words of encouragement and edification…
We must always remember who we belong to…We are not our own, we belong to the One who made us, and who redeemed us from the slave gates of hell…we can do what He says we can do…but we must know who’s we are…We must count ourselves dead to sin and alive with God in Christ…Then we must also remember that we must continually offer ourselves to God for His good pleasure…
Pay close attention, however, to this significant footnote…Our victory over sin is ultimately a matter of grace, not of rules and regulations (Romans 6:14)…By His amazing grace offered through His Son Jesus, God provides all that we need to live in victory over sin…
God bless…
Rev. Robert N. Graves, Sr.
Fisherman for Christ
But on the other hand, if we know what damage the tongue or words can do, we should realize how much good they can and will do if we offer them to God for Him to use as He sees fit…Our words should be words of encouragement and edification…
We must always remember who we belong to…We are not our own, we belong to the One who made us, and who redeemed us from the slave gates of hell…we can do what He says we can do…but we must know who’s we are…We must count ourselves dead to sin and alive with God in Christ…Then we must also remember that we must continually offer ourselves to God for His good pleasure…
Pay close attention, however, to this significant footnote…Our victory over sin is ultimately a matter of grace, not of rules and regulations (Romans 6:14)…By His amazing grace offered through His Son Jesus, God provides all that we need to live in victory over sin…
God bless…
Rev. Robert N. Graves, Sr.
Fisherman for Christ
posted by Fisherman For Christ at 3/05/2009 10:15:00 PM
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