Day 36: Losing Sight of Jesus’ Victory

The cross is the basis of God’s total provision and the basis of Satan’s total defeat. When we as Christians lose sight of the victory Jesus won for us at Calvary, we can no longer seek and experience the benefits provided by the cross, nor be capable of administering Christ’s defeat to Satan.

Satan knows that his only option is to obscure the work and power of the cross. His strategy is expressed by Paul, with these sobering words, in his letter to the Galatians:

“O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?” (Galatians 3:1)

“Paul continues: This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:2–5)

The Galatians were saved and baptised in the Spirit, and God was working miracles among them. Yet they were bewitched. The Galatians had been tricked by Satan because he had succeeded in obscuring the reality of what took place on the cross. As a result, these believers had gone back to fleshly attempts to please God by keeping rules, which in their case, were the Jewish laws.

The result of losing our vision of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross, is the substitution of the soulish for the spiritual. Man consists of spirit, soul and body, and the soul has its legitimate functions. However, it cannot take the place of the spirit.

I challenge you to consider the problem of the Galatians as I have described it. Could it be that you have the same problem in your life? Could it be the problem that is afflicting your church? Could it perhaps be the primary problem of the professing Church today?