Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel." NKJV

In the Garden of Eden man sinned, and God promised that the seed of woman (Jesus) would bruise the head of Satan. The idea is that Jesus would crush Satan under his heel, and forever, fully and completely defeat Satan and his stranglehold on man. These events took place on the cross and in Jesus’ resurrection, and since then Christians know that Satan’s power over them is broken.

In Revelation 12 John portrays the defeat of Satan, and the victory of the man child (Jesus) over Satan. When Satan could not defeat the man child, he then goes out and attacks the “rest of the offspring of the woman, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” He does this because he knows that he has been defeated, and his only hope is to wage war on followers of Jesus.

In the midst of the battle between Satan and Jesus, John writes, “Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” (Revelation 12:10-11). Saints overcame Satan by trusting in the blood of the Lamb, by their faith in his words and obedience to his commands, and by willingly giving their lives for the cause of Jesus.

I write these words to remind all of us that Satan has already been beaten. Sometimes we act like Satan still have so much control over the world, over our families and over ourselves that we cannot do anything about it. He has so much power that we can’t defeat him, no matter how hard we might try (or so we think). We throw our hands up in despair, consign the world to eternal damnation, and in essence give up the battle in our own lives and in the lives of those we love. Yet, because we believe in Jesus, because we have been washed in his blood when we became Christians (Romans 6:3-6), and because we are committed to Jesus, we can overcome and beat every attack Satan makes against us.

James, in James 4:7, wrote “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” That sounds to me like we are able to overcome whatever Satan may throw at us, but the key to doing this boils down to submitting ourselves to God. We can fight back, and through Jesus, we can win.

Let us not make the mistake that we can defeat Satan on our own. We need the help only Jesus can give – at the same time, let us not throw up our hands in despair, but know that Satan can be beaten by us every day! There is hope – it is found in Jesus! Believe in him, obey his commands, and commit to his way, and you, too, will be the victor.