Dec 20 Ezra 6, Ezra 7:1-10 Revelation 12, Revelation 13:1 Psalm 145:8-13

Rev 12:11

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

Satan is constantly accusing. He is constantly having a go. He is always looking for reasons why we are not good enough. IT says here he accuses the brothers before God, but have no doubt those accusations also pop into your head too.

HE’s always telling you that you are not good enough. He is always telling you that you are too weak, too unrighteous for God to accept you, too much of a failure.

He accuses…. and maybe he has a point.

But he has missed (or intentionally overlooked) the key factor.

He is overcome by the blood of the lamb. Because of the blood of Jesus – because of the sacrifice of Jesus – that He took on our sin, that He succeeded when we failed – every accusation of the accuser has no validity. You are not good enough – but Jesus is and He made it right.

There’s no substance to his accusations because Jesus died for them.

Do not believe his accusations, because the blood of Jesus has cancelled them all. When you are in Christ, you are covered by Christ.

And the word of your testimony rebukes him. When he says you are not good enough, you can bear witness to the fact that Jesus dealt with that. You can stand and say back, “I have been redeemed – I no longer live for myself but I live for Jesus. You have a problem with me? Take it up with my master”.

Don’t let the accusations drag you down. Jesus paid it all.

Ps 145:8

The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Often people picture a very “angry God” and put that down as a negative for Him. We picture God as someone just waiting for us to slip up, so He can have a good focus for His anger.

But… that’s not who He is. He is gracious. He is merciful. He does not want to punish, He does not want to be angry.

To be gracious means to extend grace. Grace is undeserved favour. That’s who God is. He sees mankind’s sin (and ours) and He gives us grace. God sent Jesus because He is gracious. As we are in the run up to Christmas, it’s good to remember, if you ever think of God as angry… remember the child in the manger. Remember how far God is willing to go to give us grace. He loves us so much Jesus came and lived as one of us and then died for us.

Does He get angry? Of course He does. We give Him good reason to. But He’s slow to anger. He is patient with us.

And His love is greater.