The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Judges of the Kingdom, #8

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. (Revelation 12:11)

Third, we overcome the accuser by loving not our life to the point of death. This means we obey God by remaining within the limitations He has placed on us—remaining to the end of our life if need be. To numerous believers of our day, especially in nations under Communist rule, obeying God has meant imprisonment, torture, and death.

When we obey God, not reaching out and taking what we want even though it is dangled before us, the enemy is overcome. It is not easy to love not our life to the death, to trust in God to the point of relinquishing what we covet intensely. But we have been called to rule the works of God's hands. Therefore our obedience must be tested to the limit—the limit that is death to what we are and desire.

Our true desires will all be given us someday, but only after they have been slain, buried, and raised again by the Father. When our desires are raised they will be an eternally inseparable part of Christ and of us.

Canaan represents resurrection ground, while the River Jordan typifies death to our first personality.

The soldier of Christ cannot be killed because he already has been slain and now is alive by the Life of Christ.

Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. (Joel 2:8)

We have been chosen from the creation of the world to rule. Perhaps those of us who were selected to be alive in the present hour of history have a special opportunity to overcome and to enter the fullness of power and authority.

Other men and women of time past were chosen to work with Christ during specific stages of the development of the Kingdom of God. Peter, Paul, James, and John had opportunities that we do not have to lay the foundation of the Church and to have their names written in the foundations of the wall of the new Jerusalem.

Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, the Protestant Reformers, John Wesley, had specific opportunities to work with God in His eternal purpose. None of them was other than we are—ordinary human beings on whom the call of God abides.

No one is great in the Kingdom of God except as God has chosen him or her for the post. To sit on Jesus' right hand and on His left will be given to those for whom such exalted glory has been prepared (Matthew 20:23).

God works all things according to His foreknowledge. He has prepared for each of us a specific glory in terms of the personality He has given us. Then He brings us into the world at the correct moment. Our life has been planned from the beginning.

Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. (Psalms 139:16)

To be continued.