“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

Rom 8:37 (NIV)

“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.”

Rom 8:37 (NASB)

“Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

Rom 8:37 (KJV)

No matter how you look at it those whom God has chosen for salvation are more than conquerors… 🙂

Even if we are overcome by sin and struggle and are oppressed by the enemy of our souls and even if we lose a few battles or even a significant number of battles we are still overwhelmingly conquerors through Him that loved us…

You may say to me, “How can that be?”…

Through personal experience I can say to you that this has been the case in my life…

My heart has always – from the age of three is my first memory of this – desired the things of God, I was saved at age five where I gave my “bundle of sin” to the Lord and knew that He’d “done something” on the cross to forgive me so that I didn’t need to go to hell, I knew that I would go to hell if I didn’t give Him my “bundle of sin” and when He reminded me at age eleven that since I’d given myself to Him I really needed to do what He told me to do it didn’t come as a surprise to me, I knew that this was right and I just got on with trying the best that I knew how, to do what I thought He was telling me to do…

There were a number of things in my background – my Dad was saved out of a Free Masonry background (his father had been involved with the Free Masons) and the Lord subsequently showed me that on my Mum’s side (way, way, back) there had been involvement with the Druids in England – that started to surface as the years went by which really started to concern me…

I saw in myself “all manner of evil” and was appalled by the depth of depravity that I started to see…

This “eye-opening” or “awakening” led me in my early twenties into a downward spiral which ended in a “great depression” in which I honestly believed that I’d “lost my salvation”…

I spent three agonizing months “in the pit of hell” where all my previous assurance that “it was well with my soul” was stripped away from me and I was left hearing the demonic voices tormenting me that I was the person in Hebrews 6 who had been “lost forever”…

No matter what I did, or no matter what I prayed “the heavens were as brass”…

The Lord showed me during this time that I was “Adam”, that I was “the man” and that I was “the sinner”, it was literally is if it was me in the Garden of Eden who had disobeyed God and eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, I had no one else to blame, I was the cause of all the evil in the world, It was me and my wife (although I was not married at the time) who had stood and represented the human race and given a perfect relationship with God, a perfect relationship with each other and a perfect place to live had rebelled against God and decided, each in our own heart, that we knew better and would make our own way…

Even after coming to this understanding and committing it to the Lord in prayer, admitting that I was the sinner, that I was responsible for the sin of the world, the heavens were still “brass”…

Next He showed me that everything I’d done up to that point in time – I thought I’d done quite a few things for God – had all been done for my own glory…

I hadn’t done anything for His glory…

I genuinely begged God to give me a heart which would do things for His glory and tried to “get right with Him” on this basis but again, “the heavens were like brass”…

The demonic voices were telling me to kill myself but I loved myself too much (another sin) to do this although I thought eventually that I’d probably give in to them but I knew that if I could just stay alive there was hope, for as long as I was alive there was a possibility that God would have mercy on me and save me (I honestly believed I’d lost my salvation)…

It was on my twenty fourth birthday that I was wandering around in our garden and I just said to the Lord, “I give up, if I go to hell, I go to hell”…

I knew what I was saying, nothing I’d done had made any difference and I was just letting go of any further effort to improve the situation…

In an instant, as the thoughts were still finishing in my mind, as if the lights went back on or a mains power switch was turned back on, my faith was turned back on and I knew that I’d been saved all that time, I knew again that I was in a relationship with God, I was right with God and I knew for the first time that even when I gave up completely God was there to catch me and set me back upon the Rock – who is Christ Jesus…

Hallelujah!!!

O Praise God, I became very keen for God, I became very keen to spend time in prayer because I wanted to experience God, I became very keen to seek out opportunities where I could experience the Holy Spirit…

There were still issues – the one’s from my background which I mentioned earlier – which were not broken but the Lord showed me through what happened that He would deal with those in His own time…

Even with those issues still “alive” in me, He’d delivered me and accepted me and was wanting to establish a relationship with me not on the basis of my performance but on the basis that I was His son…

I will not continue my testimony at this point, but will continue that since I am his son, I am acceptable to Him by the Blood of Jesus and by the fact that I died – my old self – and that I – my old self – no longer live…

In the eyes of God I am no longer under the dominion of darkness because I – my old self – died, just as the scripture says, “the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives…” so now that I – my old self – is dead I am no longer under the dominion of darkness but am “alive to another” that I might “bear fruit for God” as the scripture says…

When the truth that all my sins have been paid for – past, present and future – and that I am right now “forgiven” dawned on me rather than letting out a great “Woohoo!” and rushing headlong into unbridled sin I suddenly realised the freedom which had been bought for me by Christ and wanted to know Him better…

I also began to realise – as the years went on – that where sin remained, I was to wait patiently for the Lord to remove it from me, knowing that I was powerless to remove it from myself…

The Lord began to teach me that where He’d given me a promise that He would remove a certain sin from me I was to receive this in simple faith, “Thank You Lord” and not to try and do anything to help Him but to “wait for it patiently”…

I have found Him to be faithful in this process to remove the root of these sins – from my positionally dead old self – by the imposition of His truth in my new self, giving me understanding of His truth in my “innermost being”…

So whether it was from my background or from the devil or from my old self He will remove it “in His time” as the song says…

So in all these things, I overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved me…

Even when I stand fully aware of a sin, a present sin, which He has not dealt with the root of yet in my life, as I raise my hands to Him in prayer, giving Him this sin, not wanting it, but waiting on Him to remove it, I am still a conqueror through Him who loved me, I am still not under condemnation because, “who can bring a charge against God’s elect?” as the scripture says…

“It is God who justifies, who is he who condemns?” as the scripture says…

As I have come to the Lord in intercessory prayer, the devil has often come in with his condemning voice, sharply – like great arrows piercing into my soul – making his accusations against me endeavouring to stop me from petitioning before the Throne of Grace, as I wait upon the Lord – and although at times I am confused by his lying voice – I am led by the Lord to raise my hands and give myself and these accusations to Him for Him to deal with in His time and for me to continue to wait upon Him in prayer…

In this place of peace I have had great experiences of overcoming “by the Blood of the Lamb” and the word of my testimony that I am under the Blood of the Lamb and that I am righteous in His sight by the Blood of the Lamb and that I can draw near to God with great confidence in intercessory prayer being true to the Lord to the measure that I have received from Him at that point in time and to keep praying and receiving from Him what He wants me to pray and speak forth as He leads me…

“This is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith” as the scripture says…

The truth for every Blood bought saint of God is that we do not “regard inquity in our hearts” – because our new hearts, which are defined by God as “us” were “created in all holiness and righteousness of the truth” as the scripture tells us and our new hearts long to please the Lord and “delight in the law of God” as the scripture tells us…

It is those who “regard inquity in their hearts” that the Lord does not hear but those of us who have a “new heart” do not regard iniquity in our hearts because at salvation we gave our “bundle of sin” to the Lord and turned away – repented – from our sin as a way of life and gave it to the Lord for Him to establish His righteousness in us…

The practical outworking of all this is that as the Holy Spirit calls us into prayer we do not need to try and “purify ourselves” to be ready we just need to surrender ourselves to the Holy Spirit and follow His leading in prayer…

We do not need to be introspective, we just come into His presence knowing that we are “made holy” by the Blood of Jesus…

“And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.”

Heb 13:12 (NIV)

When the Lord puts His finger on sin in our lives and gives us the revelation of His truth in our hearts, our new hearts, we will repent and confess this sin to Him and be delivered…

When confession occurs in this way, it is complete, we will not be going back time and time again confessing the same thing, yes, there will be “layers of the onion” but we will be set free…

“So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

John 8:36 (NASB)

So we see that the oldest and youngest of intercessors are all on a level playing field with God, we are all members of one another, we are not competing with one another but we are members of one another and we are each powerful in the Hands of God to come into His presence by the Blood of Jesus knowing that we are seated in the heavenly realms in Christ – by the Blood of Jesus – and knowing that whatever He lays on our hearts to pray – under the leading of His Holy Spirit – who we have surrendered to – will be established by the Lord in heaven in the spiritual realm and in time will be established on earth in the physical realm also…

Can we see the power of this unity?  Not trying to “make ourselves holy enough to be heard” but knowing that we are holy and in simple obedience coming with empty hands before the Lord and reporting for duty and saying, “Here I am Lord, send me” – “Use me Lord to establish Your Kingdom in the hearts of men, women, boys and girls on this earth at this point in time”…

What power there is in the youngest and the oldest “coming boldly to the Throne of Grace” not just for ourselves but in intercession for whomever the Holy Spirit lays on our hearts…

Let it be so Lord in our generation, Glorify Your Name in all the earth, Create unity in the hearts of all Your children, Unity in the Spirit, Unity in intercessory prayer, Unity in understanding of our acceptance before You, Unity of understanding our forgiveness before You, Our cleanness before You, Our acceptance in the Beloved, “It is for freedom that Christ set us free”, O Lord let us know this freedom to the full measure that it is possible for us to know this freedom and let us “rejoice in the hope of eternal life” as the scripture says, in Jesus Name, Thank You Father, Thank You Jesus, Thank You Holy Spirit, Let Your peace fall on us all, Amen and Amen