Daily Devotional For July 31, 2025
And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “. . . the accuser of our brothers, . . . has been cast down.” And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, . . . Rev 12:10-11.
Satan here attempts to defeat God by accusing His people! He questions their standing with God, and their fitness to share in the victory that God won at the cross. They can defeat Satan by applying the blood of the Lamb to their experience. When God’s people truly understand what Christ did for them at the cross, even the threat of death cannot affect their loyalty to God. But what does all this mean in real life?1 Satan’s accusations are powerful weapons in an addictive society. Addictive behavior can be traced to abuse and rejection in the past. Careless parents traumatize children with words of rejection. Children from caring homes are sometimes abused in school or in the neighborhood. Even good parents can get trapped by the frantic pace of life, they may be physically there with their children, but they are absent emotionally and mentally.
So most youth grow up with a sense of being rejected and abandoned, even though their parents never intended them to. Satan’s accusations cause them to blame themselves for their pain. He makes youth feel worthless, helpless and rejected, tempting them to turn to alcohol, sex and entertainment as emotional medicine for the soul. The more he can make them feel ashamed, worthless and alone, the stronger the chains of addiction become.
I knew a young man who responded to Satan’s accusations with a vicious cycle of desperate sexual actions. After falling into sin a few times he would try to pray his way out. A few more episodes of sexual obsession were followed by more prayer. He slipped into sin again, and tried anointing. Nothing seemed to help until one day he was caught in the act and thrown into jail. While Bill’s sexual addiction was the result of abandonment by parents as a child, his inability to change led him to feel abandoned by God as well. Satan accused God in his mind. “You’ll never get better. If God cared, He would cure you.”
I suspect John knew Satan’s accusations from personal experience. “You’ve served God all your life and all you have to show for it is a ticket to some God-forsaken island!” But John doesn’t buy into Satan’s accusations because he knows the blood of the Lamb. The blood of Jesus goes to the root of the addiction, the sense that we are worthless and alone. How? The “blood of the Lamb” means we are worth the whole universe to God. We are precious in His eyes. With that assurance we can enter into a process of healing that will affect the whole person.
Lord, I feel alone today, not because You don‘t care, but because I was trained to believe the “Accuser.” Help me to see the value You placed on me at the cross.
1 For those who wish a deep understanding of the meaning of the cross, I have written a book called Meet God Again for the First Time (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 2003).