Resist the Devil and Stand Strong in Spiritual Warfare

We need to use spiritual weapons to fight Satan and his evil forces.

The Bible says that the weapons of our warfare are not natural, physical weapons. They are supernatural, spiritual weapons (2 Corinthians 10:4). Our weapons are spiritual. That means our victory will be a spiritual one, too!

The Bible tells us that “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8, NIV), and “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38, NKJV). Jesus recognized that His enemy (and ours) is Satan. When He went to the cross, His death bought our complete victory over Satan’s evil manipulation.

The devil is afraid of you because when he looks in your eyes, which are the windows of your soul (Matthew 6:22–23), he sees Jesus. The redemptive name of the Lord is Jehovah Nissi, which means “the Lord our banner” or “the Lord our victory.” The Lord wants us to have victory and success in our lives. Every time I preach the Gospel, I carry the banner of victory into battle. I am triumphant with Jehovah Nissi. Demons tremble, sickness is driven out, people are healed, and I have victory, because Jesus has already purchased victory by His death and resurrection.

Many Christians do not understand redemption. Redemption is the reality that Jesus purchased our complete victory over the kingdom of darkness: sin, sickness, bondage, depression, evil, and fear. Jesus purchased us. Now we can live in the reality of redemption because we have been redeemed from the enemy. Believers who do not comprehend this redemptive truth are still living in the old covenant. They live in terror of God because they do not realize they have been made righteous by the blood of Jesus. When they pray, you can tell by their long, miserable prayers that they don’t really get it. They say, “Oh Lord, I am a sinner…  I am weak... I cannot do anything... Save me from the devil. The devil is after me…” God hates those kinds of prayers because He already paid the price for our redemption.

Pharisees prayed long prayers, but Jesus rebuked them saying, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayer we pray should be a redemptive prayer. Simply speaking, every prayer should reflect the truth that Jesus paid for each one of us to be ransomed out of Satan’s power. We walk in love, faith, and victory because His Spirit lives inside our hearts. We have been redeemed! Jesus has purchased our total redemption for all time.

Jesus defeated the devil once and for all, so now we can walk in victory. We can carry the banner of victory wherever we go because, “He has put all things under His feet” (1 Corinthians 15:27, NKJV). By revelation, I know that Jesus lives in me and all the works of darkness are under my feet. Jesus purchased our victory on the cross, not for Himself but for us! Now all things of the devil are under our dominion.

No Longer Under the Law

People who don’t understand their redemption are Old Testament people. Old Testament people live in bondage under the law. They are afraid that if they do something wrong, God will kill them. They think if they think a wrong thought, speak a wrong word, or do something wrong, they will go to hell when they die. They are always worried about outward things. They are worried about clothes, hairstyles, and genres of music, literature and art. They are apprehensive of how people look at them. They are worried about what they eat. They are always concerned with outward ceremony. That is Old Testament.

Because of Jesus, we have left that behind us. “And you . . . He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:13–15, NKJV).

When Jesus died on the cross, all of that bondage of ritual and ceremony, law, animal sacrifices, and all of those terrible things were nailed to the cross. When Jesus hung on the cross, He said, “IT IS FINISHED!” Religion was finished. The requirements of the law had been fulfilled in His ultimate blood sacrifice.

Jesus was not religious. He did not come to bring more religion. He came to fulfill the Old Testament and take religion out of the way. He came to fulfill the law and declare, “It is finished!” This means that the old covenant is dead. If you are living in the old covenant, you are living in death. When you come over to the new covenant, you come into liberty. When you encourage somebody else to come over to the new covenant, you invite them into the liberty of redemption.

Jesus has delivered us from the bondage of the law and has enabled us to walk in the liberty of grace. In every sense of the word, He has defeated the true enemy. He spoiled, He destroyed, He conquered all the demonic armies that were arrayed against Him and us, and He made a public demonstration of their defeat. He completely triumphed over them. His victory is our victory! His life is our life! His righteousness is our righteousness! His power is our power! His love is our love! His health is our health!

We are destined to win this perpetual war that is raging—the struggle against good and evil, excellence and mediocrity, love and fear, health and disease, and success and failure. We have to remember that the devil, our adversary, is relentless. He never quits.

But, the devil no longer has any real power over us. He is a liar. His power is the power of lies. He comes to deceive, cheat, steal, obstruct, condemn, and accuse. He sows doubt in God’s promises. He tells us the promises of God are not applicable in our case. These lies are the only power he has over us. He is our enemy. If we know who we are in Jesus then Satan is under our feet.

The devil uses ignorance as one of his chief weapons. We are vulnerable through our ignorance. The devil seeks to steal the seed of truth from our hearts, making us vulnerable and prone to failure. That’s why we must resist mediocrity and slavery. Defeat is never God’s plan for His people.

Satan wants us to blame the things of God on the devil and the things of the devil on God. This happened to Jesus. He healed people and they turned around and said that He healed people by the power of Satan. “Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. All the people were astonished and said, ‘Could this be the Son of David?’ But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, ‘It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.’ Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out?’” (Matthew 12:22-27, NIV).