The Cross Disarmed Every Power

— Why Are Christians Still Living Defeated?

There is a question that has been burning in me, and I do not believe the church can afford to avoid it any longer.

If Jesus truly triumphed over principalities and powers at the cross, why are so many believers still living as though the devil is winning?

I am not asking that question to condemn anyone. I am asking it because I have watched sincere Christians love God, pray, fast, worship, serve, give, and still live with an underlying fear that darkness may ultimately be stronger than the victory they have been promised. I have watched people battle the same accusations for years. I have watched believers become so preoccupied with the enemy that they almost speak more about what the devil is doing than about what Jesus has already done.

And I believe the Spirit of God is calling us back to the cross.

Colossians 2:15 says that Christ “disarmed principalities and powers” and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them through the cross.

Disarmed.

Not negotiated with.

Not temporarily inconvenienced.

Disarmed.

The cross was not a narrow rescue operation designed only to get us forgiven and someday into heaven. At Calvary, Jesus dealt with sin, condemnation, the curse of separation from God, and the powers that held humanity in bondage. Then He rose from the dead, ascended, and was seated “far above all principality and power and might and dominion” (Ephesians 1:21).

The victory belongs to Jesus.

And because we belong to Jesus, we are called to live from the reality of His victory.

That does not mean Christians never suffer. It does not mean every sickness disappears the moment we pray, every circumstance changes when we speak, or every battle ends immediately. The New Testament never teaches a fantasy Christianity in which faithful believers are exempt from grief, persecution, weakness, waiting, or warfare.

But it does teach something just as radical:

None of those things is lord.

Jesus is Lord.

The Enemy’s Greatest Weapon Is Often Not Power — It Is Deception

I have become convinced that one of the enemy’s greatest strategies is to persuade defeated powers that they have not been defeated.

A liar does not need authority if he can obtain agreement.

That is why Jesus called Satan the father of lies. That is why the serpent’s first recorded weapon in Genesis was not a sword. It was a question:

“Has God indeed said?”

The battle was over truth.

It still is.

The enemy wants to convince you that your past is still your identity.

He wants to convince you that condemnation is the voice of God.

He wants to convince you that one failure has disqualified your future.

He wants to convince you that because the answer has not yet appeared, God has abandoned you.

He wants to convince you that because the battle is intense, he must be powerful.

But intensity is not authority.

Noise is not authority.

Temptation is not authority.

Accusation is not authority.

A threat is not a throne.

We make a terrible mistake when we measure spiritual authority by how loud the battle feels.

The enemy still tempts. He still accuses. Scripture tells us to resist him, stand firm, put on the whole armor of God, and refuse to give him a foothold.

Notice the language: resist, stand, do not give place.

These are not the instructions of a defeated people begging for rescue from an equal power. They are the instructions of people who belong to the victorious Christ and are commanded to hold the ground He has given them.

I do not need to make the devil bigger in order to take spiritual warfare seriously.

I need to make Christ bigger in my understanding.

We Have Sometimes Surrendered What Christ Purchased

This is where the message becomes uncomfortable.

There are places where we have blamed the enemy for occupying territory that we ourselves surrendered through agreement, compromise, fear, bitterness, unforgiveness, pride, secret sin, or simple unbelief.

The cross defeated the powers, but the New Testament still warns believers:

“Do not give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27).

That tells me something.

There is territory Christ has purchased that I can still fail to occupy.

There are freedoms Jesus secured that I can still refuse to walk in, lies He has broken that I can still choose to believe, and doors I can continue leaving open.

This is not because the cross failed. It is because victory must be lived under the lordship of Christ.

I cannot confess the authority of Jesus while maintaining agreement with what Jesus is asking me to surrender.

I cannot shout at darkness while protecting the very compromise that keeps me entangled.

I cannot demand freedom while refusing obedience.

That is where some of our spiritual warfare has gone wrong.

We have tried to use authority as a substitute for repentance.

It will never work.

The authority of the believer is not independent authority. I do not carry some personal spiritual badge that allows me to command heaven and earth according to my own will. My authority exists in Christ, under Christ, through Christ, and for the purposes of Christ.

James did not merely say:

“Resist the devil.”

He said:

“Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

Submission comes first.

I believe this is one of the missing keys in the church.

We want the fleeing devil without the submitted life.

We want kingdom authority without kingdom obedience.

We want resurrection power without crucified flesh.

But the cross is not merely the place where Satan was defeated. It is also the place where my old life was sentenced to death.

Paul said:

“I have been crucified with Christ.”

That means the victory of the cross must first conquer me.

My pride.

My resentment.

My appetite for recognition.

My secret agreements.

My self-will.

My need to control.

The believer who is dangerous to darkness is the believer who has truly surrendered to Jesus.

You Are Not Who Accusation Says You Are

Romans 8:1 declares:

“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”

The accuser may still accuse, but heaven is not required to agree with him.

Many Christians have been forgiven, yet still think like defendants. They have been adopted, yet still speak like orphans. I understand the humility behind saying, “I am just a sinner saved by grace.” Yes, everything we have is grace. But the New Testament does not stop with what we were.

“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”

God does not ask me to pretend I cannot sin. He asks me to stop making sin my deepest identity.

I am His.

I am forgiven.

I am adopted.

I am being transformed.

I am seated with Christ in heavenly places.

I am not trying to earn sonship.

I am learning to live from sonship.

And this matters because identity governs posture.

A slave begs for permission.

A son approaches his Father.

A condemned man hides.

A justified man stands in grace.

An orphan is terrified of losing everything.

A child of God knows whose house he belongs to.

Some believers are asking God to give them what He has already placed in Christ—begging to be accepted when they are already accepted, begging to be near when the veil has already been torn.

We do not need to manufacture victory.

We need to abide in the Victor.

There Is a Difference Between Fighting for Victory and Standing in Victory

I want to be careful here, because I know people who are tired.

Some have prayed for healing and have not yet seen it. Others are carrying family heartbreak, grief, or opposition that did not disappear because they quoted a verse.

I will never tell a suffering believer that the battle exists simply because they failed to “enforce” something correctly.

That can become cruelty disguised as faith.

Jesus never taught us to deny pain.

He taught us to deny pain the right to become lord.

There is a difference.

Paul had battles.

Peter had battles.

The early church had battles.

They were imprisoned, beaten, opposed, persecuted, shipwrecked, misunderstood, and sometimes martyred.

Yet the New Testament calls us more than conquerors.

How?

Because victory is bigger than immediate comfort.

Victory means nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Victory means suffering cannot reverse the resurrection.

Victory means accusation cannot overturn justification.

Victory means death cannot cancel eternal life.

Victory means the gates of hell cannot stop the church Jesus is building.

Victory means the enemy may resist, but he cannot dethrone Christ.

This changes the way I pray.

I no longer want my prayers to sound as though Jesus is reluctant and the devil is powerful.

I do not need to persuade God to be God.

I come to the Father through the finished work of the Son.

I pray with faith and expectancy. I resist what Scripture tells me to resist. I repent where I have compromised, forgive where I have held offense, renounce lies I have believed, and ask boldly for healing and breakthrough.

And when I do not yet see the answer, I do not surrender the nature of God to the evidence of the moment.

I stand.

That is what Paul says after describing the armor of God in Ephesians 6.

Stand.

Not panic.

Not perform.

Not pretend.

Stand.

Sometimes victory looks like refusing to return to an old agreement. Sometimes authority looks like getting out of bed and saying:

“Jesus is still Lord.”

The Cross Is Not Asking You to Strive — It Is Calling You to Take Your Place

I believe the church has exhausted itself trying to earn what Jesus finished.

We fast as though volume can force God’s hand.

We repeat prayers as though heaven did not hear the first one.

We rebuke the same darkness for hours as though authority is measured in decibels.

We can become so fascinated with demons, principalities, open doors, and strategies that Jesus almost disappears from the conversation.

That is spiritual distraction.

The point of warfare is not to become an expert on darkness.

The point is to remain under the lordship of Christ.

Colossians does not tell me to stare at principalities and powers.

It tells me Christ has triumphed over them.

Ephesians does not tell me to obsess over the ruler of the power of the air.

It tells me Christ is seated far above every rule and authority, and that I am alive together with Him.

Revelation does not glorify the dragon.

It glorifies the Lamb.

The safest place in spiritual warfare is not fascination with the enemy.

It is intimacy with Jesus.

When I know Him, deception loses its attraction.

When I obey Him, surrendered territory is reclaimed.

When I forgive, I close doors bitterness wanted to occupy.

When I repent, darkness loses the agreement it was using.

When I worship, perspective returns.

When I speak truth, lies lose oxygen.

When I abide, fruit comes.

When I submit to God, I can resist the devil without fear.

This is what it means to enforce the victory of the cross.

Not swagger.

Not spiritual arrogance.

Not shouting at invisible enemies all day.

It is living in agreement with what Jesus accomplished.

It is refusing condemnation because the blood has spoken.

It is refusing secret sin because I belong to another kingdom.

It is refusing fear the right to govern me.

It is refusing the enemy’s accusation the right to name me.

It is refusing to call bondage normal when Jesus has called me into freedom.

It is refusing to surrender territory Christ purchased.

I Am Calling the Church to Rise

I feel this deeply.

The hour does not need a church that is impressed with darkness.

It needs a church that is overwhelmed with Christ.

We do not need another generation of believers who know every conspiracy of hell but barely know the voice of the Shepherd.

We need men and women who have been to the cross, who have died to self, who know the blood has cleansed them, who know the tomb is empty, who know Jesus is enthroned, and who have decided they will no longer live as though Calvary produced a partial victory.

The devil is not your lord.

Your past is not your lord.

Your diagnosis is not your lord.

Your fear is not your lord.

Your disappointment is not your lord.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

So rise.

Not in pride.

Rise in surrender.

Rise in obedience.

Rise in faith.

Rise in holiness.

Rise in the confidence of a son or daughter who knows that the Father has not abandoned the house.

Stop negotiating with accusations Jesus answered at the cross.

Stop rebuilding identities Jesus buried.

Stop reopening doors repentance closed.

Stop magnifying an enemy Christ publicly defeated.

And if there is surrendered territory in your life, reclaim it the biblical way.

Bring it under Jesus.

Confess the sin.

Break the agreement with the lie.

Forgive.

Obey.

Renounce what does not belong.

Submit yourself afresh to God.

Stand in the armor He has provided.

Speak the Word.

Pray in faith.

And remain standing.

The blood of the Lamb has already been shed.

The testimony now must come from our mouths and our lives.

“They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.”

The blood is His work.

The testimony is our agreement with His work.

The victory is His.

The privilege is that we get to live inside it.

I am finished begging God to make Jesus victorious.

Jesus is victorious.

I am finished speaking as though the cross needs reinforcement.

The cross needs no reinforcement.

I am the one who needs alignment.

I am the one who needs to believe.

I am the one who needs to surrender.

I am the one who needs to stand.

The question is not whether Christ conquered.

He did.

The question is whether I will live as though He did.

And that is the challenge before every believer.

The cross disarmed the powers.

The tomb is empty.

The throne is occupied.

Jesus Christ is Lord.

Now let the church live like it.

Peter Nash