The Secret of Overcoming

E. Stanley Jones was a missionary, a theologian, and a prolific writer. He wrote the following words in his devotional book Victorious Living about how we are united with Christ and that that means that we are united with His overcoming the world:

". . . we have been thinking together on the amazing statement, 'Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.' You say, 'Well and good, wonderful, but how do I get hold of His victory and make it mine?'

"The whole verse reads this way, 'These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye may have peace. In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.' 'In the world'--tribulation. 'In me'--peace. What does this 'in me' mean?

"It surely means being identified with Him, merged into Him, so at one with Him that His victories become ours and hence His peace becomes ours. Surrender of yourself means identification with His self. Life flows into life, Mind into mind, and we share a common life.

"In the Old Testament it says, 'Where is he that . . . caused his glorious arm to go at the right hand of Moses?' God's power and Moses' efforts coincided. When he raised his right hand, God's right hand was going alongside of it. God's arm didn't do everything, for that would have kept Moses from developing. Moses' arm had to go too, but when he tried, God triumphed.

"Say this to yourself today: 'Why, I am in Christ, and so His power is identified with every single thing in my life. Today His glorious arm will go at my right hand. As I take hold of my tasks there will be an unwonted strength within me. As I face perplexities there will be unexpected solutions. As I face relationships with others there will be a love beyond my own, making those relations sweet and beautiful, nothing will meet me today that He will not be in, and together we will go through with it. He will cause His glorious arm to go at my right hand. That is enough.'"

"Round my incompleteness flows His completeness,
Round my restlessness, His rest."