The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. —Romans 8:11 NLT

The greatest weapon Christ gave us is the sword of the cross. Jesus denied Himself when He said, “Not my will, but yours be done” (see Luke 22:42 NIV). He chose to hang upon the cross, feet pointed down like the blade of a sword. From that place of surrender, He pierced darkness with an eternal mortal blow.

The enemy thought he was victorious as he watched Jesus hang on the cross. Satan devised an evil plan to extinguish any hope we would have in Christ. What our enemy didn’t realize is that it wasn’t his plan at all. Only pride allowed Satan to believe he could ever be victorious over the Father of all creation. God’s redemptive plan always included the substitutionary sacrifice of His Son.

Jesus’s death and resurrection are the source of our eternal hope. The cross is the ultimate sword of love. The book of Isaiah points to Jesus’s death on that cross, recounting how He took on all our sins in an uneven exchange for His mercy and forgiveness:

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole.  He was whipped so we could be healed. All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all. —Isaiah 53:4-6 NLT

What would life be like without Christ’s sacrifice for you on the cross? What has the blood of Jesus done for you? Fashion a personal prayer in response to all Jesus gave you when He offered up His life.