He Conquered

"You were dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh. He made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, wiping out the handwriting in ordinances which was against us; and he has taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; having stripped the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly triumphing over them in it." Colossians 2:13-15 NHEB

Precious Blog Friends, it has been a very busy month and many interference's have kept me much more occupied than I would have preferred. So please forgive this "almost month long" absence and let's get back to our study. Thank you for continuing to read.

The second part of this passage is very important for us to understand. The work Jesus Christ finished on the cross, through His shed blood in death literally stripped the opposing principalities and powers, making a show of them and openly conquering and triumphing over them through His finished work.

This does not make light of the enemies' opposition of us (to us etc...) and our very lives. What it does is encourage us to trust the Lord more and more as we give Him praise and conquer in His strength through our willing obedience. As we set our hearts to obey, then we enter the conquer, triumphing strength. One who choses to submit to the swirl, plays into the enemies hand and often does not sense the power of God available. The words of this scripture are clear. Our enemy is a defeated foe. However, he does not want you to really know that deep within your being and hence he leads mind games to entice us to fear and weakness.

Our minds are the battlefield and often our flesh cooperates with such mind games. The enemy does not read our minds, but he can feed us data in that arena that are lies, lies, lies. Hence, when in our own weakness we submit and take hold of one or more of those lies, we then become prey to his schemes.

This passage lets us know the depth of the completed victory over our enemy. It is the language of a Conquering King who takes the conquered king, strips him naked and ties him to his own chariot. The Conqueror then takes the crown and robes that were stripped off the other king, puts them on, and drags the conquered king through the streets of his own city. Now it is all conquered. This was the practice of the Roman conquerors during the time Paul wrote this passage. The people reading would have understood it completely. It is the picture of complete subjugation.

So as we live in the bounty of our Lord's grace, let's remember that we serve a victorious King and the enemy is completely conquered. We will need to remind the enemy of that as well. Our obedience is key. So the Word and our time with our Lord Jesus must take a high priority in our time values in order to remain in the safety net of His love and grace. I can hear Jesus Himself say, "Watch and pray that you enter not into temptation."