By Callie Mitchell, SAVED News International Correspondent, Jerusalem, Israel — Happy New Year! Tis the season for resolutions and this year I’d like to both encourage and challenge you toward something greater than setting earthly goals. This year, lets walk in our identity as overcomers!
Several years ago while I was in a 7 month long search for a brain tumor, I held tightly to the concept of the overcomer as found throughout Revelation. In Chapters 2 and 3, the Lord speaks to the 7 churches, by calling out their good works, where they’ve fallen short and their rewards for overcoming. The church of Ephesus, for example, has a disdain for false teachers, but they have forsaken their first love. The Lord admonishes that if they do what they did at first, the overcomers’ reward is to eat of the tree of life.
Within these two chapters, I counted 17 rewards total. I have them all marked and numbered in my bible, and they have become my eternal goals!
The Lord revealed to me a particular church that I identified with as I cried out to him while suffering from the tumor. When I looked at the reward granted that particular church, I sensed a kindness of the Lord. He allowed a painful season to take place in this age because He wanted to grant an eternal reward, and an anointing. And He wants to do the same for you, too. When you stand before Him, face-to-face, He wants you dressed in the rewards of the overcomer.
How do we overcome? Revelation 12:11 tells us we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. The blood of the Lamb is Yeshua’s (Jesus’) finished work on the cross. The word of our testimony is our ability to confess that His blood is enough for anything we might be enduring.
Last month I shared my testimony of how powerfully peaceful our new baby’s birth went this past November, as His perfect love supernaturally cast out fear. What is God’s perfect love? Its Yeshua’s shed blood!
Understanding this truth, I see a parallel to Rev 12:11 in my birth story. Knowing that the body naturally produces love hormones to help women cope with the pain during childbirth, I made that confession with my contractions, “Lord, thank you for giving me everything I need to do this.” I knew I was overcoming labor pains when my prayers shifted, “Thank you for the privilege of sharing in your suffering.” The situation was totally surrendered to God and He was doing a work through me that would produce life!
The idea is similar for all forms of suffering. The Lord has given you everything you need to get through your present pain. Make that confession right now:
“Yeshua (or Jesus), Your shed blood is enough for me to make it through this.”
Say it all day long. See if you can find all 17 rewards in Revelation, and rethink your suffering as a trial that will grant an eternal prize that will produce life. Your pain is not wasted!
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