Snapshots from El, Inc.

The Work of the Devil, Our Accuser/The Work of Jesus, our Redeemer

(El's Note: Article taken from Setting Captives Free Ministry)

The devil's work is to tempt and then accuse believers. The work of Jesus Christ is to redeem us from sin and to silence the accusations of the devil.

These truths are stated clearly in Revelation 12:10 and illustrated in Zechariah 3.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. (Revelation 12:10)

As we succumb to the allurements of the devil, and fall to his temptations, we feel unclean and distanced from God. The devil then uses these times of failure to accuse us before God, and the accusations sting and discourage us, largely because we know much of what he is accusing us of is true. When we sin we give the evil one ammunition with which to accuse and attack us. He is the accuser of the brethren and as such his work is to attack us with accusing and condemning thoughts.

But the work of Jesus Christ is to destroy the work of the devil, and this He did on the cross:
8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. (1 John 3:8)

The very reason Jesus came to this earth was to destroy the work of the devil; to destroy the power of his temptations and to destroy the accuracy of his accusations. As Jesus died on the cross He shed His blood, which forgives our sin and enables us to overcome the devil, as the next verse in Revelation 12 says:
11 They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. (Revelation 12:11)

We also overcome the accusations of the devil through the work of the cross. Jesus took our place, so all accusations the devil makes die with Jesus on the cross. "He's a sinner" and "she's guilty" and "he should die" all are redirected to our Substitute Who received those accusations and died in our place, paying the penalty for sin and silencing our accuser.

I pray that today you would focus on the work of the Redeemer, not the work of the Accuser, that God might break the power of cancelled sin in you, and that you might live to His glory.

Labels: For the spirit

posted by Joel Chan @ 4:48 PM