Greater

Because we are in Christ, we have been freed from the power of sin, that carries with it a death sentence. But, Jesus died in our place, so that we could experience salvation and victory. In 1st Corinthians 15, we can read these words:
55 "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?"
56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

The Lord is full of might and majesty, and enables us to overcome the power of the enemy.  The devil, as Jesus taught, comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Christ has come to bring us abundant life. So, no matter what devastation the enemy has wrought in our minds and in our hearts, we can experience true forgiveness and victory in the Lord.  He provides His strength, through the Holy Spirit, to stand strong in the face of discouragement and despair.

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Because we have called on the name of Christ and have been saved, we have, in essence, "enlisted" in God's army. Before we were saved, we did not belong to Him and were held captive by Satan. But, now we are on God's side.

But, we have to be equipped and aware: there is spiritual warfare, and there is a real enemy. We can read in Luke 10:
17 Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name."
18 And He said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
19 Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
20 Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven."

So, the main thing, as Jesus pointed out, is that we belong to Him.  But, because we are saved, we can triumph over the power of the enemy.

And, our strong God invites us to experience His overcoming power through Christ. 

Jennifer Bonnette had parents who forced her, as CBN.com reports, to participate in "satanic rituals, which included being raped often by a close relative. By eight years old, Jennifer was cutting her body in hopes the abuse would stop, but it didn't." In fact, she was tormented by voices telling her that even God rejected her - she said, "In my mindset I thought that I was this huge mistake and...God was trying to take me out. And I was going to beat him."

The CBN article goes on to say:

While the abuse had stopped by the time Jennifer was nine, she would carry the pain and scars for years to come. She was a troubled, rebellious teen who got pregnant when she was 16. It was then her mother made Jennifer get an abortion and kicked her out of the house.

"And told me to never contact her or anyone in the family. It did something to me. Like with all that anger and hate, it's like it pumped me up to survive, to make it. It's almost like it motivated me. 'I'll show you!'" Jennifer shares.

She moved in with her boyfriend's family and they married. For the next 16 years, Jennifer lived her life addicted to alcohol and drugs. Her husband abused her physically and sexually, at times beating her unconscious.

Finally, when she was 34 and a mother of four, Jennifer had had enough. She left the abusive husband and went temporarily to a woman's shelter.  But, she spent 10 more years continuing to use drugs, homeless for part of that time, which also included periodic stays in psychiatric hospitals or rehab locations.  The article continues:

Then, at 44 years old, living in her car and working as a waitress, she met a Christian woman who told Jennifer she believed God wanted her to move in with her.

Jennifer shares, "For her to say what she said, that God sent her in there, I felt like maybe He's trying to save me..."

She said, "So after all I've been through in my life, I thought I could give it a try." After one last try at rehab, which still didn't work, she turned to something that would. Jennifer related, "'And I was on my knees actually shooting up. I started crying. And I said, 'If there is a God, and you are real, I need you...Cause I can't stop. Please you've got to help me.'"

She ended up in the Christian rehab program, Teen Challenge.  After two months, she gave her life to Christ. She participated in a year-long discipleship program.  Jennifer said:

"From the drug use, Jesus delivered me completely from that as soon as I walked through the door, so that I could focus on him and get free from all the pain and suffering that I was in. I was in a lot of torment; I had a lot of oppression. They helped me through the process, of releasing my fear and anger. From beating and rituals, the self-hatred I had. They helped me go through the pain and releasing that."

The article notes that she is married and now "works with women in a Christian addiction recovery program." She says, "Everything that I've been desiring for my whole entire life, I'm experiencing that in Jesus Christ and the freedom that I have in Him, and the peace that I have...He's the only one that can save you and free you and deliver you. There is hope, it's Jesus Christ."

We acknowledge that God's Word is powerful, and you can trust Him in the struggles. Even when there is a past history of drug use, illicit sex, abortion, and participating in Satanism, there is freedom. And, even in this time period following the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, which opened the floodgates to so many women terminating the lives of unborn children, and with it opening the door for women to suffer from that guilt and shame, there is healing through the power of Christ.  Women who have had abortions can experience forgiveness through the shed blood of Jesus.

We can acknowledge that the power of the enemy is real, and can imprison even Christians.  One of the tools that he uses is to remind a believer of his or her past sins, and to bring condemnation and despair.  But, no sin in the past can keep us from the experience of knowing the Lord in the present and the future.  And, we can recognize who we are in Christ: our sins are forgiven, we are made new, and we can triumph over the enemy's power by embracing the love of God.