One of the persistent strategies Satan uses with believers is accusation. God doesn’t want us overcome. Overcoming Satan is what God wants for us.
And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Revelation 12:11 NKJV
One of Satan’s persistent strategies with believers is accusation. All believers succumb to accusation once in awhile, but it is possible to continually live overcome by the accuser so there is no joy or sense of victory in our faith. God doesn’t want us overcome; he wants us to overcome, so He tells us specifically how we overcome.
Overcoming Satan – First, by the blood of the Lamb.
The power of Satan’s accusations is the truth in them. We have sinned and failed in the past. He can bring back something we did twenty years ago, or a bad attitude we’ve had recently, or a failure last week and make it seem like any victory is beyond us. It may be true that we’ve sinned in the specific way he is accusing us of, but that’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is that God loves us any way which is why Jesus came and died for our sins, and now, His blood, washes us completely clean when we confess our sins. (1John 1:9 NKJV — If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Trying to defend ourselves and our actions will only lead to deeper condemnation. The power to overcome is not in our righteousness, but in His.
Overcoming Satan – Second, by the word of their testimony.
We must never lose the power of how our story intersects with God’s. His story is the gospel, sending Jesus to die for our sins. Our story is how we were drawn to Christ and became saved. Our testimony is our reminder of the new identity we have in Christ. The enemy will try to tie our identity to our old life in sin, but whenever we recite our testimony (to ourselves or others), we are reminded that our identity isn’t in our sin, but in His new life in us. (Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV) If the enemy can tie our identity to our old life it will be hard for us to ever see ourselves as an overcomer. While the phrase, “I’m just a sinner saved by grace,” seems humble, it isn’t the whole story. We are now saints, set apart ones. We overcome not because of our performance, but because we are born of God. (For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. 1 John 5:4a)
Overcoming Satan – Finally, by not loving our lives even when facing death.
God’s love demonstrated is the blood of the Lamb. (But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us Romans 5:8 NKJV); God’s love received is our testimony of faith in His blood; and God’s love operating through us is our willingness to lay our lives down for Him. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. John 15:13 NKJV) Jesus laid His life down for us and our response to His love is to be willing to do anything for Him. We must not live our lives by the voice of fear and self preservation, but instead respond to His love with lives of faith and willing sacrifice. That’s the life of an overcomer.
Overcoming The Accuser – City Church Devotions
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