All my years going to church and reading/studying my bible my question was how do we overcome? I would read over and over again how we are overcomers through Christ. Because He overcame we are now overcomers through Him. Huh? What does all that mean? How do we overcome? I would like to share something with you all that I just come into understanding*. We all know we sinned by turning away from our Creator and His Torah. We just seem to have this draw to the world and its worldly ways. And we have to learn to say "no". But how? We now know that Yeshua died so we could be forgiven and be brought back in the fold and we now walk in Torah because that is what He expects of His bride/children. But here is just a little more understanding on this. In Genesis 6:5 before the flood and in 8:21 after the flood the word says
6:5 "And Elohim saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
8:21"And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake;
for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done."
The word imagination in Hebrew is yetser as in inclination which is from the word yatsar to create and is the biblical way to say nature. As in it is "his nature to do wrong" or "the nature of man's heart is evil from his youth" A natural tendency to want to do evil. But YHVH has given us Torah and we are to walk with our Elohim. Torah is the Instruction on how to overcome that evil nature that we have. Our nature is to steal, covet, lie, cheat, etc., just to do something bad. The Instructions that He gave us is the guidelines so we can walk with Him. It is how we overcome. The Do's and the don'ts. Our guidelines, our Instructions, Torah. Amein!
Shalom!!!
*Thanks to Nehemia Gordon!