Why Christians are Truly Unconquerable

Image by Steve Wickham/Charles J Sharp used with permission

By Steve Wickham

Resurrection’s Power Makes Us Truly Unconquerable

“Death, where is your victory?

Death, where is your sting?”

— 1 Corinthians 15:55 (HCSB)

UNDER certain circumstances in life, you, me, and everyone else who abide in a particular power will be unconquerable. And it won’t matter what comes against us, with just one caveat… we must first learn this great power… it cannot simply be known, as in read and understood.

This great power is understood at a deeper level. It’s first and best known as an experience. It cannot just be known at an intellectual level. God loves us so much not to protect us from the opportunity of living this learning. God knows it’s the only way, in this world, that the learning will be meaningful.

Learning this great power necessitates the experience of pain, and the suffering of that pain to the point that it crushes us — that it renders us, for a time, deconstructed. Then, months and years later, for the remaining years of our life, we embark each day integrated with a revenant form of perspective. We live the death of Jesus, and carry it around with us, in order that His resurrection life would be revealed through us (2 Corinthians 4:7-12).

Death, at a spiritual level, no longer encumbers us. As it was for Jesus, it’s not where we remain.

Death no longer has the threat level it did. As we experience grief, we see it as the actualising agent for growth crucial to discipleship.

And not just that. We will have the capacity to endure pain (living the deathly experience) without it being as painful, because our perspective has adjusted our expectation. We no longer expect a pain-free existence. No, we expect pain. We come to expect difficulty in life. It comes with this life. We understand it and accept it. Gratitude becomes us. As does maturity. And we realise its great value; for growth, for peace, for healing, and for being the vehicle we use to enter heaven in our minds — for anticipation of that wondrous day ahead!

I do hope this doesn’t sound like a pipedream to you. It’s in keeping with the promises in the Bible lived out truly in billions of lives in history. I have experienced such things and they have become part of my being, but I don’t write this as any claim except to attest to the mercifully gracious glories of God’s truth:

Jesus’ resurrection becomes real in our life, when we apply the gospel wisdom.

This great and secret power goes counter to the world’s way, and against that grain, for it shows us the one and only unconquerable way, because we go against what seems the only way. The world would rather conquer the pain through myriad forms of anesthetising denial, and remain conquered, all the while pretending it has all the answers. The world cannot understand that pain is a reality that can only be accepted as impetus to victory.

Jesus’ resurrection proves we have a better way. The apostle Paul connects us to His resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, and when we realise such a truth in our lives, through His power, we’re convinced, convicted, challenged, encouraged, and inspired. We’re motivated toward resurrection experience; the evocation of a miracle.

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Death necessitates a rise, a raising in resurrection power, if we believe death has a purpose. God has overcome death in Jesus, and He has shown us the way to overcome the horrors of this life — for this life is not all there is — and the horror is not all there is.

We have a hope beyond this life, and that hope reveals to us a hope in and for this life.

Death no longer has victory. Death no longer has victory as we see it defeated in what Jesus does in and through us as we struggle hopefully.

Death has lost its sting. Death has lost its sting when we claim the victory by being hopeful of the Holy Spirit’s resurrecting us at the proper time, as much as we’re thankful when it comes. Because it always does.

But that’s not all…

Resurrection has the fullest power when it manifests in loving community; when we take our victory and make it an asset for others.

There’s no power on earth like resurrection in community. We know what resurrection does in one life. Think of the gestalt when God brings about the power of resurrection in community! Such a community becomes a change-making entity for the Kingdom through His power.