God's desire is to have a people who will go along with Him to overcome Satan and all the negative things. This is possible for us, not in ourselves but by His full salvation. To overcome is to experience this full salvation. This salvation includes our spirit's regeneration and our soul's full transformation, issuing in our body's transfiguration. To say this is easy, but to experience this needs much work of grace.
We have been regenerated in our spirit, and we are being transformed in our soul. Whether we overcome or are defeated depends upon the transformation of the soul. If we let the Triune God as the life-giving Spirit transform us day after day, we shall be overcomers. Even now we are overcomers, because we are going along with the Triune God's transforming work. As long as we are going along with His transforming work, we are overcomers. When we do not go along with His work in us, we are defeated. Whether we are overcomers or defeated ones depends on our attitude toward God's transforming work.
The Triune God today is within us, working to transform our soul. He is renewing our mind, our will, and our emotion. There is no problem with our spirit; it has been regenerated. The problem is in our soul. God is concentrating His transforming work on our soul. What is our attitude? To obey God is to go along with His work of transformation. We are all here under His transforming work. When this work on our soul is completed, we shall be fully matured. Then the Lord Jesus will return to redeem, transfigure, our body, and we shall be in glory (Phil. 3:21).
The matter of the kingdom is very much related to our daily life. God's transforming work is actually His exercising of His kingdom. Many Christians have been distracted by soulish pleasures. We may also be distracted from God's economy by different forms of amusement, entertainment, or sports.
God the Spirit is working within us, trying to transform our thinking. For example, as a lover of Jesus you know that you should not go to a dancing party. You may want to go, but the transforming Spirit is struggling within you. Something within you says that this is not the right thing for a lover of Jesus to do. Actually, that struggling within you is the working of the Holy Spirit to transform your mind (Rom. 12:2) concerning the matter of dancing. He also desires to transform your emotion in this matter. Your emotion should not be toward dancing, but toward the New Jerusalem.
Do you cooperate with this transforming work? Sometimes the saints are defeated, and they go dancing. At that time they are defeated ones. However, you can take grace to cooperate with the indwelling Spirit and say, "Amen, Lord. I will follow You. I go along with Your move within me. Hallelujah! I will go to the church meeting." This choice involves more than going to the meeting. It means that you are transformed in your mind concerning dancing. Your emotion is also transformed: rather than loving to dance, you love to go to the meeting. This transforming also involves your will because you determined not to go. You said, "Satan, I will not go to such an evil thing. I will go to the church meeting." By taking such a stand, your mind and your emotion and your will are all touched. To be touched in this way is to be transformed.
This illustrates how the Lord as the all-inclusive Spirit indwelling us is doing His transforming work. If you go along with it, you are an overcomer. Otherwise, you are a defeated one.