Faith That Overcomes

Faith That Overcomes

This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 1 John 5:4, ESV

THE NIGHT BEFORE HIS CRUCIFIXION, Jesus made two remarkable, back-to-back statements. He warned the disciples who were expecting great victories that they would encounter trials and tribulations in this world, and he promised them that he had overcome the world (John 16:33). This juxtaposition of apparent defeats and ultimate victory is a little disorienting. How can we overcome the world while it’s beating us up? What kind of victory looks so traumatic?

This same tension between trials in the world and victory over it continues throughout the New Testament. Late in the first century, John wrote that our faith is the victory that overcomes the world. We don’t overcome just by surviving. We overcome by winning faith-filled victories.

That happens in two ways. Our faith in Jesus overcomes the world by bringing us into God’s eternal Kingdom. But it also overcomes the world by enabling us to participate in Jesus’ transcendent life, which he demonstrated by calming storms, healing diseases, and being raised from the dead. We may feel limited by our world, but Jesus can overcome limitations through prayer and faith. We are not bound in a finite existence like philosophers have imagined. Faith lifts us above it.

That means we can look at every hardship as temporary and every victory as eternal (Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:17). We can face every problem with a plea for divine solutions (2 Chronicles 20:12). We can present our requests to God with gratitude and experience transcendent peace (Philippians 4:6-7). By faith, we overcome every attack, accusation, deception, hardship, failure, regret, and problem even while we are feeling the weight and pain of them. If God is for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31)? No one of consequence. We are more than conquerors in Christ (Romans 8:37). Whatever comes against us is momentary. Our overcoming in Jesus is already certain and everlasting. We can live, speak, rest, and pray with that assurance. In him, by faith, we will—and already have—overcome the world.

A person who wholly follows the Lord is one who believes that the promises of God are trustworthy, that he is with his people, and that they are well able to overcome.