A Plan for Victory

Revelation 12:11 (ESV) And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

The persecution in the end times upon Christians will bring great difficulties for those who want to honor God. It will be a war!

But Revelation holds a key to victory. 

First, knowing that our Savior died for us. God is for us not against us. The blood of the Lamb remembered in communion is a covenant enacted by God on our behalf. When you are under the attack of Satan, the best thing you can remind him of is the fact that this transaction for your soul has been finalized in Jesus Christ.

Second, the Word of their Testimony. There is no doubt when you share something you know it better even after you share it. Explaining to someone how to play the piano makes you more in tune with the rudiments necessary for playing the piano. So too, the more we share our faith, the more internal and real our faith becomes. This is why so many Christians are lacking in depth to their faith, they have never shared it with anyone else. What a powerful experience, however, to open your mouth and declare what God has done for you in Christ.

Third, they didn't love this life so as to shrink from death. Paul summed this concept in Philippians 1:21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. The gain we will experience on the other side is not worth comparing to what we are able to acquire here. When we lose sight of our eternal destiny our spiritual vibrancy suffers. If we are not continually setting our affections on the life to come in Christ, this world will wrap it's tentacles around us and cause us to settle for far less than what God has in store.

Spiritual victory begins with these three realities alive and well in the Christians heart. The fact that God has purchased you, sharing that story with others, and looking ahead to the eternal glory yet to come.

C.S. Lewis wrote of this in "The Weight of Glory."

"If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy.”

I remember watching a documentary of a man convicted and sent to prison for the murder of his wife. A crime he never committed. He shared that 16 years in his son no longer wanted to visit him. He cried out to God and soon after was enraptured into an experience of "pure bliss" in his words. He was a Christian, God had giving him a glimpse of the transfinite good to come. A few years later, he was made aware of DNA testing that could exonerate him but the legal system was holding things up. He could have gotten out on parole if he confessed and expressed remorse for a crime he did not do. He refused and spent more time in jail than necessary. To hear him tell the story of how that one moment made everything okay, no matter the outcome yields evidence of this great glory that shall be ours in Christ.  He would get out of prison eventually cleared of all charges. But the documentary ends with him saying that he knew God was real, had a plan and loved him... what else mattered?

This is our victory. 

And it overcomes the world.