Overcome Evil with Good

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21)

What a powerful, concise exhortation this is! In just a few words, Paul sums up the mission of Christian living.

First, be not overcome of evil! There are a thousand different ways in which Satan seeks to tear down our Christian testimony. It may be a temptation to sexual sin, or a tendency toward despair, or a disposition toward anger, or a longing for personal advancement or recognition.

But for all the temptations that may come our way, the remedy is the same, simple command: do not allow evil to overcome you. Stand fast in the Lord and in the power of his strength. Do not give in; do not be puffed up; do not allow your pride or lust or pain to overwhelm you.

And, second, overcome evil with good. The Christian's posture is not a defensive one. We are to be over-comers, not merely survivors. Not only are we not to give up in fighting sin, we are to counteract the sin in the world by our good lives and conduct. We are to overcome evil.

How can we do that? Not by fighting fire with fire, but rather by overcoming evil with good. There is no other way to successfully battle evil in the world. The goodness of our Savior must be reflected in the good words and works of his people. The more his goodness is displayed, the more sin loses its strength and subtlety.

Don't be overcome by sin; rather, overcome sin with the goodness of God.

 

~Unknown

Old Bricks

"If you carry old bricks from your past relationship to your new one, you will build the same house that fell apart before."  ~Unknown

How true this is. As Christians, when we allow things to build up in our lives (anger, resentment, unforgiveness, bitterness, jealousy, etc.) it does not matter where we go, what we do, or who we marry we will be influenced by the same old thought patterns and will handle the problems of life the same old way...by running away or stuffing them inside. Until we lay them down at the Masters feet they are still a part of us like a cancer eating away at the fiber of our being and will continue to rob us of our joy, peace, purpose, well-being, hope, and happiness. 

It becomes harder and harder to lay them down the longer we carry them because this is how we have learned to function and we no longer remember any other way of handling life. It is a scary thing really because this way of dealing with life is all we have known for a long time. It has become who and what we are. 

BUT, if we are tired of being the way we are we MUST go to God and cry out to Him to remove these from our life and ask Him to show us a better way. But, we must also ask God to forgive us for not trusting Him to handle our burdens and repent of our previous way of handling things. Because of our lack of faith we have not pleased God (Heb. 11:6) and because we have not pleased God we have cut off our power to live the abundant life, stifled our growth and maturity, and lived below our means.

Once we've done this we MUST renew our minds daily (Rom. 12:2) by saturating our minds with the Word of God and drawing new strength from spending time with God in prayer and continuing to lay all things at His feet.

And finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Phil. 4:8)

The Lord set you free from the burden of sin the moment you first came to Him and repented of your sins and placed your faith and trust in Him for your salvation, yet satan sought to bind you again and you have allowed him. Ask God to help you throw off the shackles that the evil one has bound you with. These shackles have kept you from being the person that God desires for you to be and has kept you from receiving God's best. 

Here is the "old" list again: anger, resentment, unforgiveness, bitterness, jealousy. How do these make you feel? Name one of those that is worth holding onto. 

Here is the "new" list: joy, peace, purpose, well-being, hope, and happiness. 

Which list does satan want you to live out? Which list does God want you to live? Which list do you prefer? If I were a betting woman, I would bet you are in agreement with God. So, what are you waiting for? Don't put it off any longer. Start now! Release it all to God. Repent of those old ways and live the victorious life in Christ! Live a life that is holy, pleasing, and acceptable to God. For He is worthy! He deserves all of you and He deserves the best that you can give.

For His Honor and Glory,

~The Princess Warrior ♥

Note: Only the Christian has the power, through Christ, to live an abundant, victorious life and only the Christian has the hope of eternal life. If you do not have Christ and you are trying to make changes in your life such as trying to "turn over a new leaf" you are really just putting a band-aid over a gaping, blood gushing wound that is sucking the life out of your body. 

Unless the sin in your life is dealt with no amount of cleaning yourself up will erase the sin debt that has piled up to your account. Each time that you lie, or steal, or cheat, or take God's name in vain, or covet, or lust after another (which God has said in His Word is adultery, Matthew 5:28), or fornicate, or hate (which God has said is the same as murder, 1 John 3:15), or dishonor your parent, or create a God in your mind that is not the God of the Bible (a god who will not send people to hell), or place anything in this life above God, and even your thought life and your unbelief (Hebrews 11:6) is adding to your report and God will use that report to judge your life spent here on earth. 

You do not have the power to stop sinning, and even if you did, all your prior sins still keep you in debt. No amount of cleaning up your life will remove old sins from your ledger. God's wrath will still abide in you. You will still have to pay for those crimes against God. If one rape makes someone a rapist (then they are always a rapist), or one murder makes someone a murderer (then they are always a murderer), then one lie makes someone a liar, one theft (no matter how small) still makes you a thief. It is the same. It does not matter if you stop. The sin you have added to your account will remain.

God has said that the punishment for your sins will be death (Romans 6:23). You will be separated from Him for all eternity and your soul will be cast into the lake of fire and you will be tormented day and night...forever. God will not allow one minute speck of sin to enter into His heaven or it will cease to be heaven because one sin ALWAYS begets more sin, or in other words, one sin always leads to another. Sin must be eradicated. It cannot be allowed to continue to exist. It is like a disease and it infects everything it touches.

Then, what can you do to change your fate? I'm glad you asked. God had a plan to redeem mankind even before the foundation of the world was laid. Jesus Christ would come to this earth to bear our sin debt in His own body (1 Peter 2:24). He would die in our place. He would take our punishment. Every sin of mankind; past, present, and future was laid on Him. He was declared guilty and was punished in our stead. He who knew no sin became sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus Christ, our substitute, was God's greatest gift to mankind. 

Our sin separates us from God, for God is holy and righteous and He cannot fellowship with sinful people. Mankind has been separated from God ever since the first man, Adam, sinned in the garden. Every child born since that time has inherited Adam's sin nature. We are born as sinners (Romans 5:12, Psalm 51:5). BUT, God made a way for mankind to be reconciled unto Himself (2 Corinthians 5:18)...a way for us to once again be able to enter into His presence and that is why Jesus came. To make a way (John 14:6).

And Christ has made a way. God has done everything that is necessary to satisfy our debt through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have been pardoned. God has presented His gift to every human being that has ever lived.

So, you may be thinking, "That's awesome! Then everyone must be going to heaven when they die!" Unfortunately, that is not true, for a gift must be accepted; a pardon must be acknowledged.

A gift must be received and it must be received with gladness and thankfulness...a feeling of not being deserving of such lavishness. We must realize the gift's value or we will be like the children on Christmas day who throw the gift aside and instead play with the box that it came in. How many parent's hearts sink when they took such care in choosing a gift and maybe worked overtime to purchase it to only have it cast away and replaced by something of little value or worth? And how many times have parents or friends been disappointed when they gave a child a gift of great cost then the child holds out their hands and says, "Is that all?" 

We must receive God's gift (His pardon and eternal life) with a grateful heart, knowing that the very Son of God had to give up His life so that we could live...so that we could once again walk with God unhindered by the weight and guilt of sin.

And how can we accept God's pardon if we do not know what we have been pardoned from? We must realize how great our sin debt is. This is the purpose of the law of God (His commands). When we look into the mirror of God's law we see ourselves as we really are. The law fulfills its purpose when it forces us to realize that we stand guilty before a holy and righteous God. It stops our mouths from proclaiming that we are a "good" person (Romans 3:19).

No human being can keep God's law completely. We cannot make ourselves sinless. Even if we keep the whole law and then sin only one time we are guilty of breaking all the laws (James 2:10). Let me explain - the law is like links in a chain. If just one link breaks then the whole chain is broken and becomes worthless and unusable. This brings us back to the statement I made earlier:  

"Unless the sin in your life is dealt with no amount of cleaning yourself up will erase the sin debt that has piled up to your account. Each time that you lie, or steal, or cheat, or take God's name in vain, or covet, or lust after another (which God has said in His Word is adultery, Matthew 5:28), or fornicate, or hate (which God has said is the same as murder, 1 John 3:15), or dishonor your parent, or create a God in your mind that is not the God of the Bible (a god who will not send people to hell), or place anything in this life above God, and even your thought life and your unbelief (Hebrews 11:6) is adding to your report and God will use that report to judge your life spent here on earth."  

And besides all that, dear friend, if I could give you only two commandments to show you that we all have sinned against God I would have to show you the words of Jesus. These commands condemns every man, woman, and child (that is able to understand). These are the laws which every other law hangs on, for if we can keep them, we can keep all. Even Christ's disciple wanted to know and asked Him this:

Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour (anyone that you come in contact with) as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. (Matthew 22:36-40)

Beloved, by these verses we are condemned! NO ONE has always loved God with all their heart, soul and strength and NO ONE has always loved their neighbor as themselves. So, what must we do to be saved? Remember what I said earlier? God has offered us a gift. Jesus paid the price. Now, it is up to us to either accept or decline. To accept:  

1) We must first believe God (Acts 16:31) and we must believe that He came in the flesh as Jesus Christ (John 1:1, John 1:14, John 10:30) to pay our sin debt and confess Him as Lord (Romans 10:10).    

2) and we must receive His gift (John 1:12)  

3) and we must repent (turn from our sins and turn to God) so our sins will be wiped away (Acts 3:19) and here is the proof that we belong to Him...that we continue in His Word (John 8:31).

When we reject God and His free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ we have declined and we remain guilty of every sin we have ever committed. Even while we are in the state of indecision we are lost and our sin remains in us.

My friend, time is running out. Hundreds of prophecies have been fulfilled already and the next event to occur on God's prophetic calendar is the return of Christ to gather together those who have accepted His sacrifice to fulfill His promise...His promise to take them to be with Him and live in the place He has prepared for them...forever. (John 14:3)

I took the time to write this because I care for your soul. I do not desire for you to spend an eternity in hell, especially since God, through Christ Jesus, sacrificed all so that you could be saved from God's wrath which is to come upon all the earth. (Revelation 16:1)

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9) He says that now is the accepted time to come to Him. (2 Corinthians 6:2) After He comes to gather those who turned to Him for their salvation it will be too late for you. You have been warned! You are without excuse! Please, please, please DO NOT put this off!! Your eternal destiny is at stake! I pray right now that the Holy Spirit will draw you to God and to the knowledge of His saving grace. Amen.

To God be the glory!

Copyright Information 

Copyright © 2009 The Princess Warrior Ministries. All articles are copyrighted on the date they are posted, unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved. Permission granted for not-for-sale reproduction in exact form including copyright and web address. Other uses require written permission. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are taken from the King James Bible.

The Purpose of The Princess Warrior Ministries

Women Helping Women! This is the purpose of The Princess Warrior Ministries. After all, we as Christians, are His princess warriors! Daughters of the king; warriors in His great army.

In this day and age Christian women need other Christian women. We need to stand together and love and pray for one another. And here is why: Time is closing in on us -- that time in history when Christians will be persecuted in America.

It is all too real -- God and Christianity are being pushed aside. They are considered archaic, old fashioned, out-of-date, intolerant, and narrow-minded. That which is good is considered evil and evil considered good. Morality is being thrown out the window. The more I see the more it weighs heavily on my heart.  

None of this should catch us (Christians) by surprise though. God, through His Holy Word, has warned us about the end times. Now, more than ever before, Christians have to make a stand in what they believe and in Whom they believe. I'm afraid that the soft cushion of the church pew is a symbol of the condition of our walk with Christ. We have become comfortable and complacent. 

Right now, we need to be digging deep into the Word of God, we should be found in our prayer closets daily -- crying out to God to give us wisdom, strength, a supernatural love for our husbands, children, and family, compassion for the lost, and a resolve like steel for what we believe.

Family life today has become too busy. We go from ballgame to ballgame, dance recitals, music lessons, meetings, and on and on and try to squeeze God in there somewhere and, oftentimes, having to leave Him off the schedule completely because there was just no time to spend with Him. Meanwhile, our children are being indoctrinated by the world and we think just because we have them in church every time the doors are open or even a Christian school that that is enough. Hear me please! It is NOT! I know!

Our children need to see in "us" that God is number one in our lives. That we make time for Him first and ALL else is second. We need to not only teach them about God, but to teach them about their enemy, Satan. We need to warn them about who he is, what he is, and what he is capable of. When we are in a war, and yes, we are in one, we don't just get orders from the Commanding Officer and carry them out -- we also study our enemy. We have to know what his tactics are so we don't fall into his trap. Once we are in his trap he will do his best to torture and kill us! Why? Because he hates God. He cannot destroy God so he does the next best thing -- he goes after His children.

Discouragement, depression, anxiety, isolation, loneliness, fear, anger, jealousy, etc. are his weapons and he knows how to use them. God has given us the armor to protect and defend ourselves from his attack and He has given us the best state-of-the-art weapon to fight back -- His Word -- but, they are useless if we leave them laying aside only to be used in times of fatal attacks. If we wait to use them only in dire situations we will have two problems: 1) We will not know how to use them because they haven't been practiced over and over. 2) We will be so weakened from the every day attacks that we will have little strength to even use the armor and Sword.

To disarm Satan we MUST stay close to the only One who can defeat him. We MUST make Him our priority. We must DAILY (and better, hourly) put into practice God's commands. We must talk to Him and most importantly...LISTEN. We must serve Him out of love and not for duty's sake. We must love people --- all people -- and love to tell others about Him. We must lock arm in arm with fellow Christians because we are so much stronger in numbers. And for our children to have hope they must see all these things in us. We ARE their role models of how life is to be lived for Jesus. To have a life that pleases Him. To have a life that is protected against the Devil and his antics.

While writing this God reminded me of a verse that contained the command to tell our children about Him, but after reading the chapter I was reminded that it contains so much more. So to draw this to a close I leave you with a prescription from the Great Physician Himself. A prescription that will bring about great spiritual health for us and our families. A "shot in the arm" so to speak of a potent substance that will keep us well during the most violent outbreaks of spiritual disease.

Here is the prescription for 1) Long life, 2) Our well-being, 3) Our increase, 4) God's provision, 5) God's protection from our enemies, 6) Our good, 7) Our preservation, 8) Our righteousness:

Deuteronomy 6:1-25 -- Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it: That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his statutes and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son's son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. Hear therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee, and that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath promised thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities, which thou buildedst not, And houses full of all good things, which thou filledst not, and wells digged, which thou diggedst not, vineyards and olive trees, which thou plantedst not; when thou shalt have eaten and be full; Then beware lest thou forget the LORD, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you; (For the LORD thy God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the LORD thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee from off the face of the earth. Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted him in Massah. Ye shall diligently keep the commandments of the LORD your God, and his testimonies, and his statutes, which he hath commanded thee. And thou shalt do that which is right and good in the sight of the LORD: that it may be well with thee, and that thou mayest go in and possess the good land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers. To cast out all thine enemies from before thee, as the LORD hath spoken. And when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD our God hath commanded you? Then thou shalt say unto thy son, We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt; and the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand: And the LORD shewed signs and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes: And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in, to give us the land which he sware unto our fathers. And the LORD commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the LORD our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day. And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us.

We all need to examine our own hearts to see if we are doing our part as a Christian in this country, in our state, but most importantly, in our realm of existence. The place that God inserted us to live out our lives. As this world waxes worse and worse I don't want it to be said of me that I didn't go out fighting for what and Whom I believed in!

I pray that God will bless you over and above what you are able to receive!

In His Service,

The Princess Warrior 

Copyright Information 

All blog entries are copyright by The Princess Warrior Ministries on the date they are posted, unless otherwise indicated. All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture references are taken from the King James Bible.