What do you see around you today? There’s war and conflict in various parts of the world. Here in America (and probably other parts, too), there’s a different kind of war. It’s the war of culture. You have those who want to hold on to the conservative morals and those who want to replace those old fashioned beliefs with more progressive ones.

War and confusion and change. Perhaps it seems like there’s something big going to happen just over the horizon, but there’s something big happening right here, right now. Christ has defeated Satan!

Mark 1:13, "Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels were serving him." It's such a simple verse of the Bible. Mark almost makes it seem ordinary that Jesus was being tempted, he passes over it so quickly. But it is the shortness of this verse that reminds us that Jesus completely defeated Satan.

When we examine our lives, what does Satan love to do to us? He loves to remind us that we can’t be called Christians, that we can’t honestly think that God loves us not after what we’ve done. But the time has come, Satan has been undone. That’s why Jesus went out into the desert. He went there to show Satan what was coming, to show him that he was conquered and powerless. He went there to show us that Satan’s deceptions and accusations are empty threats. They hold no real power because Jesus shut the devil down by enduring those 40 days of temptation and not falling victim to the devil’s lies once. Christ’s entire life was perfect in the same way.

That is the perfection that we need. We can’t stand before God and say, “Look at my life Lord, see my good deeds.” No, we don’t measure up. We need Christ’s perfection for all those times when we give in to the Devil’s tricky lies. All those times we sinned, Christ didn’t. And at the cross, Christ gives us his perfection as a gift, so that we present ourselves before God as perfect children, clothed with Christ’s perfect life. In other words, because of Christ we do measure up!

Something big is happening right now, we no longer need to fear the devil because the time has come, Satan has been undone.