You Are More Than a Conqueror
by Kay Arthur

It is the single most important event in history since the creation of the world, and your perspective of it determines how you face each day, each trial, each incident of life.

That is quite a lofty stament, isn't it? For what event could be more important than

...creation which brought the world and mankind into existence?

...the virgin birth of Christ which gave us the only man ever born apart from sin-and thus the only One who could, if He would, atone for our sin?

...the death of Jesus Christ as the bearer of the sins of all mankind from Adam and Eve through the birth of the last one before Jesus splits the heavens and comes to reign as King of kings?

There is only one event which is more important, more significant than all these. It is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For in truth, the resurrection is God's supreme and undeniable validation of the importance of each of the events that I have just mentioned.

Man was created to glorify God, to reflect His heavenly image on earth in the midst of all God created for His pleasure. In His omniscience, in His knowing of the pending seduction and fall of mankind in Adam, when God created the world and man, He also had a last Adam in the wings of eternity to redeem what man in arrogance would choose to lose and destroy-Paradise.

In the fullness of time we would come to another unique and never-to-be repeated event of supreme importance-the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. The second Adam, the last and final Adam, although equal with God, was willing...to lay aside His rights as Deity, to humble Himself, to confine Himself in the womb of a virgin as the Son of God.

The last Adam became a sinless man named Jesus. Through Him, He and the Father, by the Spirit, could redeem what They had created for Their glory. But, Jesus' birth was not enough. Jesus was not born to live, but to die. A sacrifice for sin had to be made if the beings created in God’s image were to be redeemed.

And so we come to the cross, yet another subsequent event of unique and supreme significance. It was an event where He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us, that you and I might be made the righteousness of God in Him. On Calvary Jesus died in our stead. The last Adam was nailed to a cross as God's spotless sacrificial lamb. Through His blood, He redeemed what you and I lost by our identification with the first Adam.

The sins of mankind were supposedly atoned for by a man born of a virgin, a man who claimed to be God, the One who, in the beginning, was with the Father and who, in the beginning, created all things.

But how can we be certain this is true? How?

The event of events, the most supreme of the supremes, the event which affirms and testifies of the importance of the other events is the resurrection. God raised the last Adam, His virgin born Son who died for our sins, from the dead!

The resurrection is your guarantee that death is no longer the victor, that sin has been conquered, that your personal defeat has been made null and void. Through the resurrection, the devil has been rendered powerless; thus, those who believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, who confess Him as the Lord Jesus Christ and who believe in their heart that God has raised Him from the dead, will live forever and ever. You and I are more than conquerors! We have a faith that overcomes the world!

Why is understanding this so vital? How will grasping and living by this truth enable you today and for the rest of your days on earth to face each day, to live through every trial, to be an overcomer in every incident of life?

In each and every incident of your life you must remember that Jesus has been raised from the dead, and that whatever you are facing is not the end, not the final chapter, not the last word, not the last analysis. If you will remember that resurrection life follows, resurrection life continues and that what is coming cannot be compared with what has happened, THEN you will be able to give thanks in all things.

Because of the resurrection, the best is certain and yet to come... the Paradise you lost, the Paradise you crave, is just around the corner.

So hangeth thou in there, Beloved. Hang on in faith. Dig your fingernails into the guarantees of the resurrection. This-whatever it is-is temporal, the eternal is coming!

Kay Arthur
Host, Precepts For Life
Co-CEO, Precept Ministries International

Monday, June 01, 2009