We Have Overcome

Scripture: Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. I John 4:4

Observation: We have overcome. The bible also tells us we will overcome, we are commanded to overcome, and we will be rewarded if we overcome.

Application: There are 2 boys in our neighborhood that are the terrors of our street. No one knows where the parents are—rumors fly about jail, drugs, who knows what. These kids are on a course of destruction and defeat.
My first thought was protecting my kids from them. Overcoming meant that I could pray and these kids would be defeated. But these two boys are not the ones in the world we are to overcome. The real enemy is Satan, who has a hold of their lives and desires to steal, kill, and destroy them. Maybe overcoming does not mean defeating them, but proclaiming that God desires to prevail in their situation, to redirect the trajectory of their life? Can we love on and reach out to and share with these boys in the name of Jesus? Can we pray and seek God to overcome the one in them who has been defeated by God. Can we be overcomers in these boys’ lives?

Prayer: God, help me believe I am an overcomer. That the one in me is greater than the one in the world and I can stand strong and proclaim victory over the evil of the world. That I would overcome evil with good. These boys desperately need someone to overcome in their lives—that person is you who is greater than the one who is in the world. Show me how I can love them and overcome with them.