Our God Is In The Overcoming Evil With Good Business

God loves the hard cases. If you don’t believe it, look at the life of King David who was guilty of murder and adultery, or the Apostle Paul, who, before his conversion to Christ, was called Saul of Tarsus. He had the infamous reputation of being a radical religious terrorist because of his fanatical practice of methodically and systematically killing Christian believers. I used to think that God loved and saved us in spite of our sins, but the truth is, He loves and saves us because of our sins! This is because “our God is in the overcoming evil with good business,” and this is how we are to behave towards those who sin against us by “returning no evil for evil, but overcoming evil with good.”


Our God saw sin enter the world through Adam’s transgression and got after it like white on rice! Even on our best days, our righteousness apart from His gift of righteousness is as filthy rags. But there’s Good News! God is in the business of dealing with our unrighteous rebellion and our self-righteous religion by offering us genuine righteousness through a relationship and fellowship with Him through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of His Holy Spirit. He is in the business of dealing with self, Satan, and sin and overcoming them through the love and passion of His Son’s cross. Yes, He accomplished this great “overcoming evil with good business” by the gift (grace) of His Son, whom He gave for the forgiveness of and deliverance from our sins. We receive this grace through repentance from dead works, faith towards God, and baptism in water in the name of Jesus. He continues to accomplish this great “overcoming evil with good business” in us through the gift (grace) of the indwelling Holy Spirit whom we are to receive by faith through the baptism with the Holy Spirit and Fire.

Baptism in water in the name of Jesus is a sacrament representing our death to the old life of self, sin, and the dominion of Satan and our rebirth in Christ the righteous One. Baptism in the Holy Spirit, which is an additional experience of grace available to Christian believers, actualizes our death to the old sin nature and actually imparts the power of Christ to us in order to be His witnesses in the earth. Living and walking in the Spirit causes us to fully possess what Christ has purchased for us. It is the Holy Spirit in whom we live, walk, pray, sing, and remain filled and, thereby, overcome sin in our lives. Therefore, we discover that where sin abounded, grace much more abounded (through the Son), and where sin abounds, grace much more abounds (through the Holy Spirit). Does this mean that we should sin so that grace may abound? No, God forbid! Nevertheless, when we do sin, grace does abound because our God is in the overcoming evil with good business. As a matter of fact, “it is the goodness of the Lord that leads us to repentance.”

The ultimate spiritual reality that so many of us seem to have difficulty getting our minds around is that sin has been judged in the flesh of Jesus Christ on the cross, and the old sin nature of the Christian believer has been executed with Him. He is the spotless sacrificial Lamb of God who became our substitute. Jesus experienced the wrath of God for us so that we wouldn’t have to. Because of His great love for the Father and His creation, Jesus Christ willingly took our sins and the judgment for them upon Himself. As our scapegoat He allowed Himself to be carried outside the camp and crucified on Golgotha’s cross for our redemption. Therefore, we are instructed not to sin because such a great price has been paid for our forgiveness, and sin leads to spiritual bondage and enslavement. “It was for freedom that Christ has made us free,” and “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Jesus said to His disciples, “If you continue in my words you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” and “if anyone practices sin, he is the slave of sin, and a slave does not abide in the house forever. But a son abides forever, therefore if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” We are commanded to account ourselves dead indeed to sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord because, again, in reality our old sin nature was crucified with Christ in His death, and a new divine (righteous) nature was imputed (stored up) unto us when He was raised from the dead. Now, through the mighty baptism in the Holy Spirit, the very righteousness of God is imparted unto us. As we live and walk yielded to the Holy Spirit’s directives instead of the dictates of the flesh, we grow in grace and in the knowledge of God as the Holy Spirit leads us into all Truth (the character of Christ). “If we sow to the flesh, we will from the flesh reap corruption; but if we sow to the Spirit, we will from the Spirit reap life everlasting.” We are, therefore, instructed to “mortify the misdeeds of the body, through the Spirit.”

As Christian believers we were foreknown of God before the world was framed. He has also predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son so that He might be the first born among many brothers. Whom He predestined, them He also called; whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them he also glorified.

We Christian believers must not deliberately go on sinning after having been justified by grace through faith, in having come to the knowledge of the Truth in the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. If we do, there remains no more sacrifice for sins, but only an expectation of God’s righteous judgment that will devour the adversaries. After experiencing enlightenment and tasting the heavenly gift, and after having shared in the Holy Spirit as well as partaking of the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if a Christian believer falls away from the faith and denies Christ in both word and deed, it is impossible to renew him again to repentance because he has done despite unto the Spirit of grace and tread Jesus Christ under foot, counting the blood whereby he was sanctified a common thing. Many professing Christians, and more and more as the end times approach, will be guilty of this very thing and become reprobate to the faith through the spirit of apostasy - the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience. Don’t be part and parcel with them!

Nevertheless, those who are in Christ by faith and are striving against sin by submitting themselves to God and resisting the devil are given this great hope. “I write to you so that you sin not, but if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” God is married to the backslider, therefore, if we lose faith, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself, but if we deny Him, He will deny us. Therefore, I exhort you, don’t do it! There is soon coming a time when professing Christians are going to be faced with the choice of taking upon their flesh the mark of the Beast, 666, which is the number of man, or refusing to take it and remain faithful to Christ. Those who take it will be allowed to buy and sell goods; those who refuse it will not. Many faithful souls who refuse the mark will also be rounded up and beheaded for their faith. Jesus Christ testified that those martyred souls will not partake of the second death which is Hell. Those who deny Christ by taking the mark will experience the wrath of God in its fullness. Jesus told His disciples, “Do not fear him who can kill the body and then have no more power over you, but rather fear Him who, after having killed the body, has the power to throw your souls into Hell. Yes, I say unto you, fear Him!” If we as Christian believers don’t truly love and fear God now, we won’t love and fear Him when it’s a matter of life and death; therefore let us truly love and fear God now so we will be able to do so when the Great Trouble comes.

Because Jesus overcame sin, we can too, and again this is accomplished through repentance from dead works and faith towards God, baptism in water in the name of Jesus, baptism in the Holy Spirit with whom we are to remain filled. We must also learn and practice a continuous and consistent trusting and obedient yielding to the Holy Spirit’s directives instead of following the dictates and rudiments of the flesh or, if you will, the old sin nature.

Repentance means turning from our sins and utterly forsaking them in much the same way that God turned His back on Jesus when He became sin on the cross for us. On the cross Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” I’m looking forward to, and expecting the day when my sins cry out to me, “my Rob, my Rob, why have you forsaken me?” It is important to realize that Christian repentance is not just the practice of daily turning from our sins, but it is also the practice of daily turning towards our God in faith (trust) and faithfulness (obedience). Jesus said, “If you would be My disciples indeed, you must deny yourselves, take up your cross daily and follow Me.”

Again, it is the goodness of the Lord that leads us to repentance, and it is His longsuffering patience with us that gives us the opportunity, as well as the ability, to turn from our sins and utterly forsake them through His overcoming love and power. So, let’s do it! Let’s no longer be overcome with evil, but let’s overcome evil with good. We can do this by grace through faith because our God is in the “overcoming evil with good business.” “Greater is He (God) that is within in you than he (Satan) who is in the world.” “Christ in you, the hope of glory!”

Jesus became sin so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. He became poor, that we might be made rich. By His wounds we are healed. Through His death we experience life. Through His burial we are hidden with Him in God. Through His resurrection we have power over sin. Through His ascension we are seated with Him in heavenly places. Through His intercession we are made more than conquerors through Christ who loves us. God always causes us to triumph through Christ Jesus. His Holy Spirit makes us faithful witnesses (martyrs) unto Him in the earth. Because of this we can bless those who curse us, do good to those who do us harm, and pray for those who despitefully use and abuse us. We can love the unlovely and be not overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good as we understand and cry out, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” “In killing you, they think that they are doing God a service!” What they don’t know is that you are already dead, buried, resurrected, ascended, and seated with Christ in heavenly places and that your life as a Christian witness of God’s love, as well as your death as martyrs who choose to remain faithful to Christ even unto death, is the strongest witness to the world that a Christian believer can offer. Paul said, “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain,” and to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”

As forerunners of Jesus Christ’s second coming we must preach and live in forgiveness and unconditional love, and this is what we must be preparing others to do. Begin relating to those individuals in your life now who are the most difficult to deal with as if God were allowing you to be tested by giving you the opportunity to love them unconditionally with the same love that God loves you. They are truly in your life so that you will learn to love the unlovely and develop the character of Christ in your character through yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of Love. Begin to look at the temptations to sin as an opportunity to overcome sin through the resurrected power of Christ in your life. Yes, even those old besetting sins that have kept you bound and caused you to live beneath your privileges in Christ are to be resisted, and overcome in this hour through the power of the Holy Spirit. Begin to look at the difficult circumstances in your life as opportunities to persevere and endure hardships as a good solider of the cross while remaining faithful to Him in the midst of them. Begin to visit, live, and minister in the mission fields of underdeveloped countries with the grace that God provides because before Christ returns, the whole world will be a third world mission field. It is time that we remove ourselves from our comfort zones because our comfort zones are going to be removing themselves from us as the end times approach. Our only comfort will be found through an intimate relationship with God around His Word and in His Spirit, and this is how it should be! “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” We must also learn to live and die in faith, giving no place to vengeance for, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, thus says the Lord.” We are commanded to pray for our enemies forgiveness and salvation!

Above all we must learn to return no evil for evil, but overcome evil with good, because our God is in the “overcoming evil with good business!” God cannot be tempted with evil; neither does He tempt any man, but every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed; when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin, and when sin has had it’s way, it brings forth death. The first Adam yielded to the Tempter’s voice in the person of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were deceived by the Serpent through the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. This resulted in their sinning against the will of God, and the results of that sin led to their death. Every human being born of Adam has now inherited a sin nature that leads to death. The good news is that Jesus Christ, the second Adam, did not yield to the Tempter’s voice, but rather yielded his will to God in perfect obedience and faith. Therefore, those who receive Him by faith are born again, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but they are born of the will of God. We thereby receive a divine nature that has the power over lust, sin, and death if we will just learn to appropriate it by faith. Thereby, we become partakers of His divine nature because He has not imputed our sins unto us, but rather He has imputed His righteousness unto us. Let’s live and walk in the goodness of that revelation, and let us lead others into it through our thoughts, words, actions and reactions. Let’s do this for both our friends and our enemies alike, because our God is in the “overcoming of evil with good business.” Amen?