I pray that you may be victorious through the power the Lord gives you

I pray that you may be victorious through the power the Lord gives you

(Matthew 16:24)
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me,
he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Countless people follow the Lord, believing they have already
been saved through faith in Jesus Christ.
They give thanks for the joy of being forgiven and
saved through the merit of the precious blood shed
on the cross of Jesus Christ.
It is an undeniable fact that when we accept Jesus Christ
as our Savior, we are forgiven for our original sin, inherited sin,
and the sins committed under the First Covenant through
the atoning sacrifice of His blood on the cross.

However, the sinful habits and practices we engaged in
before believing in Jesus Christ still lurk as deep-rooted evil.
Whether before or after believing, we continue to sin habitually,
and even the slightest provocation causes this deep-rooted evil to
burst forth. If we claim to believe without severing the chains that
bind the “old self” to sin and evil, we will inevitably end up as slaves
to sin.

Just as Jesus Christ forgives sinners and tells them,
“Go and sin no more,” He does so because He knows that
if a sinner sins again, they will be bound by the chains of sin,
fall back into slavery to sin, and be captured by evil.

(John 8:34)
Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”

The question then is: How can one become free from sin?
Almost all believers make no effort on their own to be set free from sin.
This is because they believe, based on what they have been taught,
that there is not even a need to do so.
Rather, if they see someone striving to be set free from sin,
they will try to persuade them; if that fails,
they will regard that person as a legalist.

“Oh, this person doesn’t know Jesus!” they’ll say.
“Salvation is a gift and grace from God—all you have to do is believe.”

Because they think this way, the Lord applied the Parable
of the Eight Demons to this evil generation

(Matthew 12:43–45) (The attitude of simply believing and
resting content in the assumption that one has already received
salvation is evil)
43 "When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through
arid places seeking rest and does not find it.
44 Then it says. “I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives,
it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean, and put in order.
45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked
than itself, and they go in live there. And the final condition of
that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with
this wicked generation." (This refers not to individuals or a small
minority, but to the vast majority.)

It is not about any individual or a small minority.
The vast majority of those who claim to be believers fall
under the category of “this evil generation.” The fact that
the vast majority of those who claim to be believers are in the
wrong means that the core doctrines of faith—the very doctrines
of salvation—in everything they currently hear, learn, and teach are
fundamentally flawed. (Their knowledge in other vast fields is truly
impressive; it is this very impressiveness that deceives. It is most
dangerous when they appear correct in everything precisely because
they are so knowledgeable and well-informed.) Simply put, Satan’s
doctrines have tainted the entire generation referred to here; the
root of evil is, after all, Satan. Because they have been fatally influenced
by this evil—specifically, Satan’s evil—they have become an evil (Satanic)
generation. It has tainted the whole generation with evil. Applying
theological ideas to faith has become like drinking poisoned liquor.
By pouring this poisoned liquor down people’s throats and making
them drink it, they become intoxicated. It’s not poisoned liquor
unless it contains poison; yet, because they’ve been brainwashed
and brainwash others—claiming they’ve been saved and that
“it is finished”—and always speak only kind words, people sink
deeper into it. Since it’s poisoned liquor, they cannot escape.
The entire generation has fallen; that is what is meant by
“the entire generation.” I’ll stop here for now.

In verse 44, “the house unoccupied” (because they have not
fulfilled the condition of keeping the Word and abiding in
the Lord [the Word], the Lord does not dwell in that house
as the Lord [the Master] through the Word, so “the house is
empty”; since there is life in the Word, we must keep the Word
(See: John 15:3–4)

(P.S.) The entire generation of believers in Jesus has fallen into
this evil generation, but among this evil, believing generation
as a whole, isn’t each individual’s house empty? Yet, they continue
to believe—they continue to believe in Jesus as Lord, acknowledge
Him as such, and consider themselves saved, don’t they? But they
are unaware. No matter how much they think that way, the house
that does not honor the Lord as Lord remains empty, yet they fail to
realize it. Therefore, they are not a generation that believes in the Lord.
He calls them “this evil generation.” He is speaking of the current state
of the entire believing generation. These are the very words of
Jesus Christ Himself. There’s a saying in Korean: “Try putting yourself
in their shoes!” This doesn’t mean that this evil generation doesn’t
believe in Jesus. From the perspective of this evil generation, they do
believe in Jesus; but from Jesus’ perspective, He is eagerly waiting for
them to realize that they are not honoring Him as Lord, to repent,
and to come to Him. He is urging them to repent because if they
continue on this path to the very end, they will perish.

“swept clean and put in order” (Although the house is empty,
because it has received the atonement of grace, it has been
cleansed by the grain offering, and its past defiling sins have
been made right and resolved (atonement received)

(2 Peter 2:19–21) also (refers to a generation that merely
believes but has fallen into slavery to sin)
19 "They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves
of depravity--for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.
20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it
and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at
the beginning.
21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way
of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their
backs on the sacred command that was passed on them."

Jesus’ teaching is that, in order to forgive sins, we must
cast off the wickedness of the old self.
In other words, the fundamental reason and motive for
the forgiveness of sins is to cast off the wickedness of the old self.
A people who do not know what is evil and what constitutes
sin are no different from those who do not know Christ at all.
Through the authority and power of the precious blood of
Jesus Christ, He grants atonement for all sins committed in the past;
however, we must keep in mind that He grants us an opportunity
for renewal so that we may cast off the evil deeply rooted within
us today—and the sins that continually arise from that evil—and be
saved as new people clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
In other words, only by receiving grace and, while living on this earth,
uprooting evil completely, overcoming sin, and being born again
by the Holy Spirit can one finally attain salvation.

(1 John 3:4–5)
4 "Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
5 But you know that He appeared so that He might take away
our sins, And in Him is no sin."

Through our faith in Jesus, we receive forgiveness of sins
and atonement by the merit of His precious blood shed on
the cross; however, it is common for people to sin again after
receiving this atonement due to habits or patterns of behavior
stemming from their innate or acquired nature.
If we realize that the reason we sin again even after being
cleansed by Jesus’ blood is due to habits or patterns of behavior
rooted in that evil nature, then we must stake our very lives
to uproot that evil.
This is what the Lord meant by “taking up one’s own cross.”

If we truly grasp that our very life and death hang in the balance
when it comes to uprooting that evil, then naturally, those who
stake their lives and act with a resolve to fight to the death are
the ones who will triumph.
Only when we take up and bear our own cross can we uproot
the source of our evil.

If we live a complacent and vague life, assuming that we are
saved—or will be saved—simply because we have received
atonement while still harboring this evil, we will inevitably be
ensnared once again by the habitual sins of the past and fall back into sin.

If we fail to bear our own cross, we will only serve to fuel the
growth of evil.

A people who do not know what evil is or what constitutes sin
are no different from those who do not know Christ at all.

The fundamental reason and motive behind Jesus’ forgiveness
of sins is to call us to cast off the evil of our old self. Since it is
impossible to cast off these old habits by our own strength alone,
we must pray and receive the help of the Holy Spirit.

We can never attain the Lord’s righteousness if we leave
our evil habits and practices as they are.

The Lord grants His power to those who pray earnestly,
seek Him fervently, and strive diligently.
Today, I have urged you to extract the evil—which is your
own cross—from the context of “this evil generation” and
to be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and emerge victorious.

I pray that you may all be victorious through the power the Lord grants. Amen.

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I pray that you may be victorious through the power the Lord gives you

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