Overcome or Overcomer?

You’ve heard the hopeful encouragements for this time: We’ll get through this. Everything will be okay. We’re here for you!

Then, nobody shows up on my doorstep to help me get through anything!

What it's easy to forget is that God always shows up. However, He brings a different message.

He doesn’t ask me to “get through this.” He’s the One who has already made a way through the worst that could happen to us—life without rescue, life without God.

Even the pandemic and social unrest aren’t curve balls God has thrown into the world to see how we respond. In fact, the more I live through these days of change, loss, and economic unpredictability; I sense God’s grief. He takes no pleasure from the restless struggles these days have caused.

However, I believe God has a plan for us that we still don’t get. When trouble comes to disrupt our way of doing things, God wants to show us how to be overcomers.

We’re not called to make it. We are called to become more than conquerors through Christ.

We are called for more.

It’s not a new message but hearing it in this time feels impossible. How do you overcome?

We don’t overcome by ignoring realities. There are new stresses to this different life. New fears. New losses. New responsibilities. We can’t ignore them.

Instead, God wants to come over us and come in us with His power that enables us to be the last ones standing in times of trouble. He wants us to live and move and find our routines in Him.

Overcoming isn’t us mustering our fortitude to be more positive or compassionate. Overcoming means we let God invade every part of our being so that trouble squeezes His character out of us. That’s where compassion comes from. Or endurance. That’s where love lives. It all comes from God.

It’s the greater-is-He-who-is-in-us power that we have 24/7 access to and can live in and by.

How much of God do you need to overcome?

My answer is all of Him. Not just a taste. Not just a Sunday dose.

This is radical living, the kind that turns a different spotlight on Christians. And God knows we need a different spotlight!

Let God come over you. Let Him overtake thoughts, perspectives, agendas, words, actions. Find His rhythm for this day and week. Be His shadow in seamless movement.

This is not a white-flag surrender. This is victory in the making. The power that created the world and keeps it moving would move into you. The power that raised Christ from death, would raise you today.

Don’t pray for power. Pray for openness to God. Pray for obedience. When God invades what you thought was your territory, you know it. It is in that moment that you either give God more of yourself or decide to keep certain parts to yourself.

We need more God-invaded people today. We need people who talk less about this power, but live it more so that people around them witness it. We need overcomers who live in this broken world without being brought down by it.

If we want to be Jesus-followers, we need to live by his creed:

I live by the power of the living Father who sent me. John 6:57

I do nothing without consulting the Father. John 5: 30

I . . . came here not to be served but to serve others. Mark 10:45

My nourishment comes from doing the will of God. John 4:34

Jesus lived to model how God’s power can live in human flesh. He came to call people to live the same way. I want to be one of them.

Will you join me?