Greetings!
Some years ago an epidemic of measles struck
Vellore and one of my daughters had a severe attack. We knew she would recover, but our other infant daughter, Estelle, was dangerously vulnerable because of her age. When the pediatrician explained our need for convalescent serum, word went around Vellore that the Brands needed the “blood of an overcomer.” We did not actually use those words, but we called for someone who had contracted measles and had overcome it. Serum from such a person would protect our
little girl.
It was no use finding someone who had conquered chicken pox or had recovered from a broken leg. Such people, albeit healthy, could not give the specific help we needed to overcome measles.
We needed someone who had experienced measles
and had defeated that disease. We located such a person, withdrew some of his blood, let the cells settle out, and injected the convalescent serum. Equipped with “borrowed” antibodies, our daughter fought off the disease successfully. . . . She overcame measles not by her own resistance or vitality, but as a result of a battle that had taken place previously within someone else.
— From In His Image, by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey
Do you see the picture? Jesus, in His earthly body and through His mansoul, was exposed to the ever-increasing temptations of Satan. Each victory
furthered the process of developing the antidote to sin — not for Him, but for us. He was doing the work for us. What we could not do, He did for us.
The pictures of spiritual reality
that God has painted into creation are only pictures. A picture is flat and one-dimensional and falls short of representing the reality perfectly. In this analogy, the picture falls short in that Jesus never was infected with the sin disease. He was exposed to the germ, but the disease never took hold, just as the horse is not overcome with the initial injection of snake venom. It is only enough to activate the creation of the destroyers (antibodies), not enough to poison the horse.
Each progressively stronger injection only creates more antigens until the horse can withstand an undiluted dose of poison, so developed are the antibodies in its blood.
When Jesus transfuses us with His blood
(pictorially speaking), it is His life, not just an element of His life added to ours. Here the analogy falls short again. His life replaces our life. In one real sense, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. When you receive that eternal transfusion of His life, it has the overcoming power in it. Lean in.
Where do you need the Overcomer to flow more fully in your life?
Talk it over with Him, and pre-altar your flesh before the situation arises.
Jennifer Kennedy Dean
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Jennifer Kennedy Dean 2019
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