Do you keep a list of those things God helped you overcome and conquer? 

Maybe we should! Maybe we need to refer to that list often and give God praise for all He has done and is doing in our lives!  We need to remember the list of all the times our Overcomer helped us overcome evil and conquer it once and for all!  We need to remember why God helps us—because of His love for us.  We need to remember those conquering moments especially in those times the Enemy tells us how unworthy, useless, unloved, inadequate, and unwanted we are as judged by others and ourselves.  When we are weak, remember God gives wisdom and fortifies His strength in us.

WARNING:  When we attend self-pity parties where no one but us and the Enemy are in attendance, we lose all memories of victories in Jesus. We forget we are standing daily in His Holy Presence, our Victor, the King of kings, and Lord of all!  We lose the attitude of gratitude and joy once felt when we fall to degrading ourselves on things not yet accomplished and assume somehow, we are not quite “enough” in the eyes of the world.  It is not the world we need to please—it is Christ alone!  His Holy Spirit grieves when we are lost in self.

DANGER:  When we fall into people pleasing our thoughts lead us to slippery slopes of despair.  We “feel” we must DO more, our deceitful hearts tell us, when what we really need is to BE more in touch with our Savior, the one we trust with our lives because He is Life.  God gives us more than enough to overcome with Him. He is the one who sent His Son, Jesus, The Overcomer who conquered the world of darkness with the Light of His glory and grace!  We are more than conquerors because of Jesus!

Joshua led Israel’s army to many victories over the Canaanites. Though the Israelites were outnumbered, God is never outnumbered. He encouraged, supported, and brought victory to them. After seven years of campaigning, the Israelites destroyed the alliance of Canaanite tribes.  Thirty-three kings are named in Joshua 12, beginning with Sihon and Og whose lands were east of Jordan and had been conquered under the leadership of Moses (vv. 1–8; Num. 21:21–35). The sixteen kings defeated in the southern campaign are listed in Deuteronomy 12:9–16 and the fifteen northern kings in verses 17–24.  Here is Joshua’s List.

Joshua 12

The List of Defeated Kings

12 These are the kings of the land whom the Israelites had defeated and whose territory they took over east of the Jordan, from the Arnon Gorge to Mount Hermon, including all the eastern side of the Arabah:

² Sihon king of the Amorites, who reigned in Heshbon.

He ruled from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Gorge—from the middle of the gorge—to the Jabbok River, which is the border of the Ammonites. This included half of Gilead. ³ He also ruled over the eastern Arabah from the Sea of Galilee^[a] to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea), to Beth Jeshimoth, and then southward below the slopes of Pisgah.

⁴ And the territory of Og king of Bashan, one of the last of the Rephaites, who reigned in Ashtaroth and Edrei.

⁵ He ruled over Mount Hermon, Salekah, all of Bashan to the border of the people of Geshur and Maakah, and half of Gilead to the border of Sihon king of Heshbon.

⁶ Moses, the servant of the Lord, and the Israelites conquered them. And Moses the servant of the Lord gave their land to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh to be their possession.

⁷ Here is a list of the kings of the land that Joshua and the Israelites conquered on the west side of the Jordan, from Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon to Mount Halak, which rises toward Seir. Joshua gave their lands as an inheritance to the tribes of Israel according to their tribal divisions. ⁸ The lands included the hill country, the western foothills, the Arabah, the mountain slopes, the wilderness and the Negev. These were the lands of the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. These were the kings:

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Joshua conquered because He obeyed God, leaving nothing undone in His instructions from God.  Joshua could not do it alone.  Only by God’s gifts of strength, wisdom and guidance, with an army of God’s people with Him was Joshua able to conquer the kings of evil in the Promised Land.

Jesus, Son of God, promised Messiah, was sent to earth with a similar but more extensive assignment.  He was born and lived as the Son of Man and moved into the neighborhood of humanity to demonstrate the Love of God in ways humans had never known.  Jesus then conquered the enemy of death once and for all which led to the forgiveness AND removal of all repented sins of those who believed Him. 

Jesus was not sent to form armies but instead sent to seek and to save the lost, heal and forgive. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17

“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39

Jesus, KING of kings and LORD of lords!  Through Him, we win the victory over sin and death.

Lord,

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Help me to live the life of the redeemed and set free!  May all I think, say, and do be pleasing to you.

In Jesus Name, Amen