Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Luke 10:17

Let’s start with some context. Jesus just received the report of the 70 disciples He had sent out on a mission to “gather in His harvest”. Along the way, they did some pretty amazing things by way of miracles. They came back pretty excited. This wasn’t church as usual, and they knew it.

Jesus knew it, too. Seeing the battle in the spirit realm, even as the 70 disciples saw it in the earthly realm, He knew a vital link had been broken in the chain the evil one used to enslave the people. He saw Satan fall like lighting. There is no place in the Bible that we are told that Satan ever recovered from this fall.

But worse things were in store for our enemy, much worse, as Jesus rose from the dead, which many of us recently celebrated. Satan and his power were defeated when Jesus rose. This is the new reality we live under.

This new reality—the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven—becomes our own as we receive it (Heb 12:28). Now we stand in the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21); and we have the love of God deposited inside of us (2 Cor 13:5). In fact, we have received more than enough to stand victorious over any enemy or attack that could ever come against us:

“His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:3-4). This is one of the most revolutionary concepts in the New Testament.

All things pertaining to life have been given to us. As we stand firmly planted in the life of God, we possess all the power we need for any challenge we face or any assignment we are called to.

Jesus’ disciples knew this. So it’s no wonder, after all this success in ministry, they were perplexed when they came to a situation where it didn’t work (Mark 9:17ff). A demon-possessed child was brought to them and they couldn’t cast the demon out. In the end, Jesus performed the miracle, Himself.

But the disciples came to Him later and wanted to know what happened? Why couldn’t they do it? Obviously they had been used to performing so many similar miracles before. What went wrong this time?

What I want to draw our attention to here today is this: The disciples were accustomed to their prayers being answered affirmatively, and that’s important. Many of us in are a church culture that is accustom to our prayers NOT being answered some of the time (or maybe most of the time).

Like them, we should be accustomed to our prayers being affirmed by God—Answered, Yes. When that doesn’t happen, it’s NOT OK. It should stand out and cause us to ask why. And that’s exactly what the disciples did.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Romans 8:32
(More on this next time.)