“For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
~1 John 5:3-5 (NRSV)
There are two dimensions to the idea of salvation, always.
We have ‘salvation now’ and ‘salvation in the time to come’. We are saved for good works here on earth as well as being saved for heaven to come. Being saved is victory allowing us to conquer many difficult things in the name (and ways) of Jesus.
Faith for Conquering Our Worlds
The commands of God are the constructs for the right-living way.
Studying God’s Word and getting to know God’s situational will and doing it is power for addressing all our problems, so far as they’re addressable here on earth. And even for the unaddressed problems, God gives us power and grace to accept these things, for we have a home to come that is beyond everything we’re enduring here (see, for instance, 2 Corinthians 4:16-18).
When we have begun to obey God then we see how mighty God is by the factors of the Holy Spirit working in our moments to achieve for us peace beyond understanding. It is remarkable to see, for those witnessing our witness of faith.
Our obedience fires and makes real our faith. We are driven no longer by ourselves, but by a heavenly force that’s beyond the world.
Obedience from the ‘conquering’ aspect is not hard; it delivers much more than it costs. Who could put a price on victory when this victory is the very purpose of life?
Faith for Conquering The World
This form of faith is most absolute. The fact that we can do the theological arithmetic and establish that there is enough evidence in our minds and hearts to believe is beside the point.
Time comes to throw all knowledge out the window and cling fast to the fact that we’re all dying. Our bodies waste away daily; yet our spirits are being renewed and they grow by the day if that’s our accepted purpose in life. God is preparing us for something better than this world.
Conquering the world is the fact achieved at physical death unto eternity.
By belief in Christ we will supersede this marvellous physical life—one that is also torn with such acrimonious fury at times—and fly away to be with the Lord in heaven, to live where we belong. We will have conquered the world’s grasp over our spirits as they return to God.
© 2011 S. J. Wickham.
Graphic Credit: Santhosh Janardhanan, A Journey To Conquer The World.
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