EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/7/2025 11:27 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Part 3 “How to Recognize an Overcomer”
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 5:1-5
Message of the verses: “1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is
born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. 2
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe
His commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments;
and His commandments are not burdensome. 4 For whatever is born of God
overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the
world — our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he
who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”
I
continue quoting from John MacArthur’s sermon in this Spiritual Diary.
“And
then, of course, most notably in the text we have overcome the world, and that
is said three times, twice in verse 4 and once in verse 5. The world being the
invisible system of evil that opposes God and is ruled by Satan. In fact, the
Greek says, “We continually are overcoming the world.” This is simply saying
that once you’ve come to Christ, you will always triumph; your faith will be
sustained. You’re like Job; you might lose everything you possess, all your
children, all your possessions, all your fortune, all your wealth, and your
health. You might lose it all but never will you deny your God. Never will you
lose your faith and trust in Him. You might waver with certain doubts, never
will you deny your Lord, because the faith that God gave you is a faith that
triumphs over everything. We are then the overcomers.
“Now
how do you know these overcomers? So we go from a definition to a description and we got into this a
little bit last time. And here John does what he’s been doing all along
in this epistle; he takes
us back through the same test by which you know you’re an overcomer, the
test by which you know you’re a Christian. And we go back down to verse 13
again in chapter 5, kind of the key verse of the whole book, “These things I
have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God in order that you
may know that you have eternal life.”
“How
do you know you have eternal life? How do you know you’re an overcomer? Well in
these opening verses, we know that overcomers by three marks, the same things
John has been talking about. Number one, faith – faith. Verse 1, “Whoever
believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” Verse 4, the end of the
verse, “This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” Then again
in verse 5, “Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that
Jesus is the Son of God.” Three times – verse 1, verse 4, and verse 5 – it says it is our faith that
overcomes. You look at an overcomer and you can tell an overcomer
because they believe in Jesus as the Son of God. That is, they believe in the
person and work of Jesus Christ. They have an ongoing sustained faith in the
gospel of the Son of God. The
one who believes is the one who is an overcomer.
“It
was years ago, you remember, when I wrote the book on the Lordship of Christ
called The Gospel According to Jesus? I point out in that book that there are
people who believe that there are those who are on their way to heaven even
though they do not believe. And later on a book came out in which a new term
was coined – unbelieving
believers – are going to heaven. That is people who once believed, don’t
now believe anymore, but the once believing was good enough, and even if they
don’t believe anymore they’re still on their way to heaven. They are simply
unbelieving believers. Then I wrote another book to deal with that ridiculous
idea. You can tell who an overcomer is because their faith is sustained. They
don’t go from being believers to being unbelievers, because the very faith that
they possess is a gift from God empowered by the Holy Spirit and sustained by
Him as well. All of the overcomers are characterized by faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, and that means they embrace all that is true about Him.”
3/7/2025 11:43 PM
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