We've been talking about how to reign and rule in life, and we’ve been focusing on Romans chapter five and especially verse 17. We will get back to that in another podcast but in this episode I want to show how that Jesus came to reverse what Adam did and not just leave us at zero, but give us a new life – leave us better off than Adam was before the fall!
Jesus reversed the curse, the curse of sin, the curse of the law and all of that (Colossians 3:13). The curse has been reversed and we are able to overcome all it's affects! In Christ we can experience much more than we did or do in Adam. We can experience the goodness of God and live the abundant life but sadly a lot of Christians are more familiar and expectant just to experience the effects of Adam. Whereas as believers, we shouldn't be believing to be sick and believing to have lack or believing to suffer and have to endure through life. We should be believing for a life of victory in every area because of what Jesus has done for us!
I grew up believing that if God wants you to be free, you’ll be free. If you’re living in defeat it's for a reason and good cause. If God wants you to live in victory, you'll live in victory. You just need to submit to it and go along for the journey. And that is completely wrong. James 4:7 says that we should submit ourselves to God, resist the devil and he will flee from us. That means that there are certain things in your life that you should submit to and allow, but there's certain things that you should resist and not allow in your life. And so, you need to know what's from God and what's not from God.
Whatever you submit to, you allow and you promote and you give room to in your life. You empower whatever you submit to. The things of the enemy, you resist. That word resist means to actively fight against, which means you resist with everything that you've got. An easy way to discern what's of the devil and what's of God is to look at the fall of man, Adam's sin in the garden in the beginning, and see what came in as a result of the fall: sin, sickness, lack, depression, defeat and all of these things. Jesus came to reverse the curse and restore us to a better place than Adam and Eve were at. And so, for example, this shows us that sickness is not from God and can never be a gift from God. It’s purely a result of sin and the fall of man. It is destructive in nature and not intended to bless anyone. Jesus came to give us divine health and to enable us to live in victory including the area of our health. I'm using health as an example right now and I want you to see that when sickness comes, it's not a gift from God. God did not allow it. It's not something that we should submit to or give room for in our lives. We don't just accept it and go, well, you know, if God wants me well, then I'll be well. Jesus provided for our health and our healing through the cross and so sickness is never God’s will for us. I can teach four hours on the subject. I've got a short book about it and I've got eight hours of video teaching on it plus many other audios, many hours of audio teaching on it. The point is that healing is provided for through Jesus. Sickness is not of God. Healing is not if the devil. Healing is from God and sickness is of the devil.
John 10:10 says that the thief comes, but for to kill, steal and destroy, Jesus says, I came to give life and life abundantly. And so the basic of that is, is if it's good, it's God. If it's bad, it's the devil. And so you need to discern what's good in your life, what's bad, resist the bad, and submit to and give room for the good.
How do you resist the bad? Well, actively fight against it. You know, we go to the doctor when we're sick because we're actively fighting against sickness. We can use faith to actively fight sickness. You know, when sin comes knocking in the form of temptation, we resist it. We choose not to do it. We say no, that's actively fighting against it. I want you to see is that God wants you to live a life of victory. You're a new creation in Christ Jesus, you can live like Jesus! 1 John 5:1 says, whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And so because we are born of God, you know, then then it goes onto verse four and five and it says basically that because we are born of God, now we are overcoming, we are not overcome and because we're overcomers and because we are born of God, we have world overcoming faith.
That's powerful! You are an overcomer and can live in victory because you are a child of God. We now have his DNA. God is a winner, which means I'm a winner. God has world overcoming faith, which means I've got the world overcoming faith. It's in my DNA. I'm not trying to get world overcoming faith. I've got world overcoming first. Yeah, I am an overcomer because God is a world overcomer. I'm not overcome by the effects of Adam. I overcome the effects of Adam and I enjoy the inheritance of Christ. Why? Because the Greater One lives in me (1 John 4:4) and is greater than anything in the world. Your DNA now is full of victory. Your DNA is full of all the life abundant, you are destined to overcome, to reign and rule in this life and live in victory.
John 15:5,8 speaks about how God desires for us to have much fruit in our lives and that fruitfulness, not failure, brings glory to God. We need to realize that fruit is really a natural by-product of being rooted in The Vine, and of allowing His life to flow into us. And so we see from many different scriptures that we have been created to overcome temptation, defeat the devil, defeat sin and overcome the temptations of the flesh. We have not been created to be dominated by the devil, sin or the flesh, but we have been created to rule and reign in Christ.