Conquest is a valiant concept which arouses the noblest thoughts of man. It causes his imagination to ascend as with the wings of eagles to heights far above his mundane existence. And though man is often raptured by the thought of its possibilities, many, if not most, are thoroughly convinced of its improbability. 

This explains the ground-level existence of the masses even among the saints. While the Bible says one thing, [we] shall mount up with wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31), we live as brutes, who, graze with the beasts on the grass of the earth (Daniel 4:15) like Nebuchadnezzar. What ought to be our legacy is often forfeited by our fear, which supersedes our faith. We find ourselves famished when we ought to be fighting and faltering when we should be finishing. 

For many, the thought of this brings discouragement because they reckon themselves too late for the charge. They cannot fathom being overcomers when they have spent their whole lives being underachievers. When their thoughts are aroused by such a possibility, they take heed to the accuser’s voice that tells them of their personal history of failure. Little do men know that it is their failures which have broken up the fallowed ground and created a greater longing for fruitfulness. 

Most have forgotten, if they ever knew it in the first place, that a conqueror is first and foremost a man who has been conquered. A biblical understanding of life is contrary to a worldly view of the same. One sees life as the true means of happiness, the other sees death. And to many people’s surprise, the Bible places death at the head of the table. 

Jesus said, in John 12:24, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” In other words the road to life is paved with death, death to sin, death to self and death to this world. Without question, it is the road less traveled, for it is the narrow road that leads to life that few will find. To the world, life is the means and death is the goal; to the Christian, death is the means and life is the goal.

When a man sees this highest and noblest route that the Great God has prescribed, he is at the beginning of his history of conquest. Of course, one must be fully aware of the two primary principles in a conquest, a conqueror and the conquered, for there is no conquest without both. Each one carries out his proper duty in this matter of conquest. The conqueror must vanquish the conquered enemy, and the conquered must relinquish his position at the hand of the conqueror. 

The very concept of victory demands its counterpart, which is defeat. Without defeat, there is no battle won and no victory secured. Thus, every conqueror must not only know his skills, he must know his enemy. The failure to consider one’s enemy is a failure to engage in the conquest. This is one of the ringing failures of the church today. “Let’s just love each other, hold hands and sway in the wind,” many say, while tragically, the enemy devours our posterity. 

Ironically, as the old saying goes, “We’ve met the enemy and the enemy is us.” How odd to think that the conqueror and the conquered are one and the same. And though Satan is a great enemy of the soul, he is limited to tempting a man, for he cannot make a man sin. A man is drawn away by his own lust. All Satan provides is the bait.  And though Satan is culpable in the matter, it is man’s soul that will pay his own debt. 

When Paul said in Romans 8:37, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us, he was declaring his dependence on the One who alone could conquer the great enemy of sin—Jesus Christ. For sin and Satan cannot be overcome by mere fallen and depraved mortals. 

It is a Sovereign King that is necessary to overthrow our adversaries. It is a Great High Priest who alone can atone for our iniquities. It is a Prophet who must declare the revelation of gospel light to our souls. Only Christ fulfills these offices, and He alone leads us from one conquest to another. He has conquered our souls and made us whole by His shed blood. He will see us through to the end of our earthly pilgrimage till we make our way through the gates of glory and enter into His unveiled presence. 

You, dear Christian, have already conquered because Christ is your covering, and He leads you from victory to victory. It is not your willpower, your fortitude or your intelligence which secures the victory; it is Christ and Christ alone. Our eyes of faith fastened upon Him comprises the proper remedy for our indifference and fatigue. 

Paul stated in 2 Corinthians 3:18, And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. It is gazing at His glory that produces our continued transformation and final conquest in glory.

In this edition of GraceTrax, it is our hope and prayer that the saints see more clearly, that we are not only conquerors through Christ, we are “MORE” than conquerors through Christ who LOVES US! Get off the ground and take flight with the eagles. It is your divine right as a child of the King. 

I’ll see you at the banquet table.

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Dr. R.A. Hargrave is Senior Pastor at Riverbend Community Church in Ormond Beach, Florida.  He is also the Executive Director and Bible-teacher for GraceWorx Ministries.