At war with the dragon?

I've heard it said that Revelation 12 is an all too often neglected Christmas passage. The dragon stands poised to devour the woman's child as soon as He is born. Well, isn't that a pleasant picture? Merry Christmas!

The dragon is later seen to be working incessantly to destroy not only the Child, but everyone who follows Him. Verse 10 refers to his attempt to destroy them (us, if we follow Christ) by accusations. I tend to get a little stuck on that verse sometimes.

I see a couple of things that play out so naturally that I often miss them. You likely do, too. Excessive introspection accomplishes the "dragon's" objective; we see our failures and ride ourselves with guilt. The sad fact of the matter is, when we face accusations, he's right. So am I. So are you. We have pieces of history we'd rather gouge out of our existence. We can't. We're stuck with the choices we've made...

Or not. Enter the blood of Christ, shed for our sins (v. 11). The blood satisfies God's cry for justice. He met that requirement Himself and continues to crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). We rely solely on that sacrifice and are compelled to testify to that. By that testimony and by the blood, we silence the accusations of ourselves and our enemy. God does not see those hideous times that He's paid for. The accusations of the enemy are overcome. Our testimony of the blood of Christ puts us at war with the dragon. Here's the final chapter in that story - God wins, and we join Him.

If would be nice if I could say that outside sources are the only other source of accusations (see www.vomcanada.com). That's obvious. We likely won't miss that. I mentioned two things that seem so natural that we often miss them. Brothers and sisters, it's us. We've coined the phrase around here, "Body bashing;" bashing the Body of Christ. We have insane expectations of each other. When we're tempted to accuse our family members, we're playing into Satan's hands. I'm not saying that we never express concerns with close friends who will honestly assess the situation and our hearts and pray with us; but idle criticism of the Body of Christ is Satan's favourite ploy to destroy us and our testimony. Are we at war with the dragon? Or do we comfortably slip into, "Yeah! He's right!"