Live 2024 as An Overcomer!

No matter what the coming year holds, we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus!

As the calendar turns people not only look back, but they try to look forward. Prognosticators try to predict everything from the stock market, to global conflict, weather patterns, and even elections! We want to know what’s coming next!

I don’t know specifically what 2024 will hold for you and me, I pray it holds blessings beyond your greatest imagination. However, I do know

The Cosmic Conflict

This is the Christmas story from heaven’s perspective!

The woman is ethnic Israel - God’s promise to Abraham was through his descendants all the nations of the world would be blessed.

The Child is the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Dragon is the old lying serpent, the Devil (accuser), Satan (the adversary).

The rest of the offspring are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Conquerors Through Christ

Everyone loves a champion, a victor! Nikeo - means victor (illustration: nike the shoe company looked for a future champion to promote their brand, Michael Jordan).

We have a champion - Jesus Christ!

How do we live today in light of Christ’s victory?

The Promises

Revelation 2:7 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’”

Revelation 2:11 “The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’”

Revelation 2:17 “To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’”

Revelation 2:26–28 “The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. And I will give him the morning star.”

Revelation 3:5 “The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”

Revelation 3:12 “The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.”

Revelation 3:21 “The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.”

The Pattern

We Overcome By the Blood of the Lamb

We are not victors because of anything we have done, it is solely because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has paid the penalty for our sin. That baby born of the seed of the woman, came to die for you and me! His blood on the cross blots out every accusation and removes our guilt!

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

We Overcome By the Word of Our Testimony

What is the Word of our testimony? It is faith in Christ alone!

1 John 5:1 “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.” 1 John 5:4–5 “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

We Overcome By the Promise of the Resurrection

They loved not their own lives unto death!

Romans 8:31–39 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus …”

Enter this new year with the certainty that Christ is the Victory, and in Him, by faith in His shed blood and glorious resurrection, we are more than conquerors through Jesus!