Overcomers!

                            "Tears come from the heart and not from the brain."
                                                   Leonardo Da Vinci




Leonardo da Vinci is touted today as one of the most influential artists in all of history. He lived during the 1400's and  lived among the contemporaries of Raphael and Michaelangelo. He was a genius and a visionary and left a powerful legacy not only in art, but also in the field of science. He was a sculptor, painter, engineer, architect, scientist, musician, inventor, mathematician, geologist, botanist, and writer. Today, when we think about the Renaissance era, there is no other name that better symbolizes this period than the name of Da Vinci.

His masterpieces include the works of The Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. Centuries later, artists around the world still try to replicate the genius of this artist. He is admired and honored throughout the earth.

As we appreciate the beauty that Da Vinci left behind, it is also important to note that his life was shaped through the lens of overcoming adversities. He was born as an illegitimate son of a peasant woman and a Florence notary. This meant that he was never allowed to have a proper surname. The name Da Vinci literally means  "of Vinci", which is the town in which he was born.

His low socio-economic status prevented him from attending any good schools and most professions were simply out of reach for him. However, his determination and strength propelled him to seek other options. He became a voracious reader to compensate for his lack of education and he served as multiple apprentices to successful artists. He wrote, "Obstacles cannot crush me; every obstacle yields to stern resolve."

He ultimately did achieve success within his lifetime, but that was never really what fueled him. He measured internal success as more valuable than external success. He spent a lifetime in pursuit of truth and valued his own approval rather than that of other men. He looked deep within himself, saw his own potential, and then spent his lifetime in pursuit of it. He wrote in his journal, "You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself."

While Da Vinci painted religious pictures with passion and life, little is really known about his own personal faith and beliefs. He was baptized in the Roman Catholic church but he was not devout. It seems to many that he valued reason and philosophy more than he did faith. Many historians speculate on this topic but there is little data to support what faith, if any, Da Vinci may have had.

If he really did not have a genuine faith and was still able to leave beauty on this earth that exists for centuries, how much more beauty, as believers, could we possibly leave as our legacy? As Christ followers, who are filled with the very spirit and power of God, there is an eternal legacy and not just a temporal one, that can fuel our very existence.

That is because what we are building now is one that will never disappear because it is the very spirit and nature of our God. And, what we build will never dissipate or be forgotten because it will enter into eternity with us. It will be honored and esteemed forever because it is actually God, Himself, who accomplishes His purposes through us.

The Bible tells us that as believers, we, too, are given dominion. David says, "You made mankind rulers over the works of Your hands; You put everything under their feet" (Psalm 8:6). The word dominion  literally means "rule or power over". God commands us to rule and have mastery over the things of this world and to walk in the authority and power that He so freely gives to us.

Jesus assures us that we will have opposition and adversities, but He also tells us that He has already overcome the world (John 16:33).  And, He tells us that we, too, will overcome by His blood and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11). This means that we will overcome every spiritual adversary that comes our way when we walk in The Truth of God's Word and the truth of our testimony of what God has done in each of our lives. No one can legitimately dispute His Truth or the truth of what we say about His work in our lives.

We are made in His image and we are called to be His ambassadors (or representatives of Him) on this earth. That means that we can show others what God is like by allowing His Spirit to dominate our lives and by walking in the fruit of His Spirit. As we walk in dominion, we are to do so in a way that reflects both the nature and the character of God.

We multiply biologically and we multiply spiritually. Believers are the only people on this earth who can multiply life spiritually. No one else can do it. We defeat death and bring resurrection life by the power of Jesus. He is glorified when we stand against evil and death and call forth His Light.

We are surrounded now in a culture of death. It comes through sin and brokenness and much pain. We are the only ones who have hope and a solution for this culture of death. We are the only ones through which God would make His appeal. We are loved, and blessed, and esteemed by our God, and we can share these truths with those who honestly just don't know.

Whatever challenges that we ourselves have overcome by the grace and help of Jesus, we then become the most qualified to help others to also overcome. We have earned our PhD and are being commissioned to reach out to others that are struggling under the weight of that thing. We can teach others how to also become overcomers and multiply an overcoming spirit in the earth. This is truly how we occupy until Jesus returns again!


"For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith."
                                                            1 John 5:4


****As Believers, we know The Truth, which is found in the person of Jesus Christ. When we also find our personal truth, through God's eyes, we will then know our purpose and message in the earth.

Whatever It Takes

"And they [Jesus and His disciples] came to Bethsaida. And people brought to Him a blind man and begged Him to touch him. And He caught the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village; and when He had spit on His eyes and put His hands upon Him, He asked him, 'Do you possibly see anything?'

And he looked up and said, 'I see people, but they look like trees walking.'

Then He put His hands on his eyes again; and the man looked intently [that is, fixed his eyes on definite objects], and he was restored and saw everything distinctly [even what was at a distance]."
                                                              Mark 8:22-25




Throughout the Bible, many people were brought to Jesus in order to be healed. Some came on their own accord and others were brought by caring and concerned families or friends. Often, Jesus' miracles are recorded in more than one Gospel, but this particular account of a blind man is only mentioned by Mark. There are many conflicting opinions from Bible scholars as to why this miracle is only recorded by Mark, but the one that makes the most sense to me is that for the first 8 chapters of the book of Mark, he is simply trying to answer only one question. That question is, "Who is this Jesus and how should we see Him?"

Jesus' first response was to lead this man out of the village. First of all, this same village had already been judged by God because of its unbelief (Matthew 11-21-24). Secondly, Jesus took the opportunity to deal individually with a person who needed more clarity in his vision and understanding. His gradual restoration was with purpose. In other words, it was not a deficit in Jesus' ability to heal. Rather, it was the exact process that this blind man needed in order to see and know Jesus in the way that God wanted to be seen and known by him.

My favorite part of this story is that Jesus uses mud to heal his eyes. This says to me that Jesus gets into the mud with us and in our circumstances in order to effect the desired changes that He wants. He is not standoffish or aloof as some believe that He is. No, He walks with us right in the middle of our messes and gently causes the exact changes that we need in order to be healed and in right-standing with Him. It is in the midst of this process that we come to know Jesus in ways that we had not previously known.

If today we were to conduct a survey and ask 100 Christ followers what the most important thing to see in Jesus is, we would probably get 100 different answers. That is because we each have different vision and insight into who this Jesus is to us. We each have different backgrounds in faith and beliefs  and understanding. But, for all of us, Jesus is constantly wanting us to know Him in new and fresh ways and to have a greater intimacy with Him than we have ever previously experienced.

This blind man at Bethsaida had probably once been a sighted man because in the first stage of his miracle he compared men to walking trees. He had been sighted and then he had been blind. He then received partial restoration and then a complete and total restoration of his sight and vision. He would now be a follower of Christ that had a testimony to share with others about what Jesus had personally been and done for him. It is this kind of testimony that is both powerful and brings true transformation in the lives of others.

Because He loves us unequivocally, Jesus operates in the "Whatever It Takes" mantra. This means that His ways are so much higher than our ways and His objectives are for us to know Him better and to become more like Him in the process. He will allow circumstances in our lives in order for us to have this intimate and personal story of all that He means to us individually so that we can also help other people to see accurately. Oftentimes, there are moments in our stories where we, too, are spiritually blind as to what God is doing or as to how He might heal or deliver us. These are the times where we learn to trust God at deeper levels than we ever have before.

Walking in this depth of intimacy with Christ changes both who we are and what we do. Today, I had lunch with a very dear friend who told me that she prays the "whatever it takes" prayers for her friends and loved ones. Granted, she confided in me, this is a very scary prayer sometimes. And she would definitely know that firsthand because she has walked through some very frightening "whatever it takes" moments in her own life. And yet, she has also seen Jesus come through for her in mighty ways that have brought eternal transformation both for herself and for others.

She has inspired me to want to be courageous enough to pray the "whatever it takes" prayers.  I want to have a heart like hers that confidently places my hand inside the hands of Jesus and declares that I would rather have His will in my life than my own. I want to have the kind of faith that trusts in God's processes in my life, as well as His promises. For, it is in those processes that we become more like Him.

How grateful we all should be in knowing that Jesus stands strong with us in the middle of our messes and in the middle of our most intense battles. Gently, He orchestrates the surgeries that we all need deep within the four chambers of our hearts. At the same time, He quietly reassures us that this will end in our good and for His glory. He will show up for us at the exact right time and in a way that will always yield an eternal harvest.

Much of the remnant of believers around this world are searching for deeper answers in their faith journey than they ever have before because many of them are in intense spiritual battles and are suffering in their lives. That is because Satan "is filled with fury because he knows his time is short" (Revelation 12:12). The reason God has allowed so much in the lives of His children are so that we become more like Him and so that we see accurately who the real Jesus is so that we won't be deceived.

We are living in times of strong delusions and false teachings. To know the counterfeit, we must first intimately know the genuine Christ. That is why the truly blessed children of God are those who are having to cling to Him tighter than we ever have. The blessed are those who are having to trust Him more now than ever. The blessed are the ones having to adjust their vision and sight of the Lord. The blessed are those who can privately pray to Jesus and honestly tell Him "whatever it takes".


"For the Lord your God is He Who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you."
                                                            Deuteronomy 20:4


                                                WHATEVER IT TAKES:

For You To Be glorified; For Revival To Come; To Save Our Loved Ones;  To Make Us More Like You;  For Your Will To Be Accomplished;  For Babies To Be Saved In Our Land;  For Righteousness To Be Exalted; For Us To Be Prepared; For Love, and Mercy and Grace To Be Extended; For Your Children To Walk In Victory; For Deception To Be Cast Down; For Wickedness To Be Trampled On; and For Jesus To Shine Throughout The Earth..... And for whatever your whatever is!