To overcome death a believer must change his attitude from one of submission to one of resistance. Unless a believer rids himself of such passivity, he will never overcome death but will instead constantly be harassed by it and end up among the graves of those who die prematurely. Most believers mistake passivity for faith. They think that they have committed everything to God. If they should not die, He will definitely rescue them from it; if they should die, nothing can stop God from letting them. They simply consent to God's will being done in everything. Such an attitude sounds good, but is this faith? It is simply a lazy passivity. When we do not know God's will, we should say, as the Lord did, "Not as I will, but as You will" (Matt. 26:39). This does not mean that we do not have to cry out to God specifically, making our requests known to Him. We should not yield passively to death; God wants us to work together actively with His will. Unless we know for sure that God wants us to die, we should not passively allow death to suppress us. Rather, we should actively work together with God's will to resist and reject it.

We do not have such a passive attitude toward sin, so why should we have such an attitude toward death? The Bible considers death as our enemy (1 Cor. 15:26). Therefore, we should be resolute in fighting and overcoming it. Since the Lord Jesus has met and overcome death for us, He wants every one of us to overcome it in our present life. We should not ask God to grant us strength to bear the power of death; we should ask instead for the strength to overcome its authority.

Because death comes from sin, our deliverance from death is based upon the fact that the Lord Jesus has died for us and saved us from sin. His redemption is deeply related to death. Hebrews 2:14-15 says, "Since therefore the children have shared in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might destroy him who has the might of death, that is, the devil, and might release those who because of the fear of death through all their life were held in slavery." The cross is the basis for overcoming death.

Satan has the power of death. He holds this power because he has sin as his basis: "Therefore just as through one man sin entered into the world, and through sin, death; and thus death passed on to all men because all have sinned" (Rom. 5:12). But the Lord Jesus Himself entered into the realm of death and through His redemption abolished its sting—sin—so that Satan has lost his power. Through Christ's death, sin has not only lost its effect, but death has also lost its power. Therefore, we must now break through the power of death by the death of Christ and appropriate all that has been accomplished at Golgotha so that our whole being can be delivered from the siege of death.

There are three ways for believers to overcome death: (1) by believing that they will not die before their work is completed; (2) by believing that the sting of death has been removed, so that even if they die, there is nothing to be afraid of; and (3) by believing that they will be totally delivered from death because of the Lord's second coming and rapture. Let us now look at these one by one.