Toward the beginning of my ministry, I was suddenly bombarded with feelings of guilt, shame and condemnation for mistakes all the way back to potty training! In no time, these nagging thoughts started to erode my confidence in God’s love so much that I was tempted to throw in the towel of ministry and go do something else.
That’s when God spoke to me and said: “You stand at a crossroad. You can go to the noose or to the nails—to be hung or to be held.”
It was a curious word. But then the Lord revealed just what He meant. The enemy launched these accusations to destroy me—to hang me—like they did to Judas. Indeed, they were sent on a mission to achieve Satan’s ultimate goal: “to steal, to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10).
But then there was the option of the nails. This was the Via Dolorosa—the road to the cross.
God used this spiritual attack to redirect my attention to the place that I sadly thought I was beyond. As I detail in my book, Silence Satan, I was taken to the cross to intimately behold the moment when, “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). God assured me that this is how I would be held. That is, the nails of Jesus’ crucifixion were meant to hold me in a holiness and righteousness, not based upon my own efforts, but based upon His.
With my eyes freshly focused on the cross, I vividly saw how it laid to waste every weapon the enemy had formed against me. It was powerful! Each sin from the past, all the words that were spoken against me, every insecurity and lie were intercepted and canceled before they could achieve the assignment for which they were sent.
Do you feel the enemy has fired some weapons to take you down? If you sense the heat of Satan’s attacks, threats, lies, or accusations, then I want to encourage you with a promise: “No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper … ” (Isa. 54:17).
As I discovered, the key to realizing this promise in your life is to go down the road to the cross. Let the attacks that Satan intends to erode your confidence in God’s goodness take you to the ultimate demonstration of how wide, how long, how high and how deep is God’s love for you.
Be encouraged: Because of the cross, there’s nothing there for the devil to accuse or hold against you. Yes, the plot of the enemy is made powerless because the plan of the cross has made you righteous. {eoa}
Kyle Winkler equips people to live in victory. His mobile app, Shut Up, Devil!, is the #1 spiritual warfare app; and his recent book, Silence Satan, has helped thousands shut down the enemy’s attacks, threats, lies and accusations. Kyle holds a Master of Divinity in biblical studies from Regent University. Get daily encouragement from Kyle on Facebook and Twitter.
