Have I overcome? Or am I overcome?

Do you sometimes feel beaten down, tossed around, pushed (or blown) back and forth? I know I do, and so this verse is a comfort and encouragement to me:

You are from God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.

1 John 4.4

As I said, I don't always feel like I've overcome anything, but reading this verse (actually this whole letter of John's) makes me think about what didn't happen.

I haven't gone off the rails. I still know that true life comes from a relationship with Jesus rather than from having the latest techno-toy, though I sometimes get distracted.

The other thing is this: having overcome, we need not fear. We needn't fear, for example, irrevocably losing our way. We needn't fear that our lives will go to waste (unless we want them to, and even then I'm not so sure). We needn't fear that we'll be rejected at the end.

And just to be clear... could we be financially ruined? Sure we could. Might we starve? That's possible. How about getting killed? A moment of inattention at the wrong time is all it takes. Cancer, cardiac arrest, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease - nobody said we'd be immune to any of those. Jesus himself said, "In this world you will have tribulation" (John 16.33). But tribulation need not defeat us.

Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. Thank God for that!

posted 05-Dec-2006