BLOODY WIN: WHY THE CROSS IS HEAVEN’S GREATEST VICTORY
Hello there dear gist partner.
How are you doing this final Thursday of August 2025? How has the month been so far? I pray that in this remaining says of August, the Lord releases to you all that you need to claim this month.
It’s Guest Feature Thursday 💃🏾💃🏾💃🏾.
Today we’re having one of my dearest friends, Gift Omogah, share her thoughts with us. I read this and God!!! There are so much blessings to unpack! I know that this will bless you so, enjoy the ride.
Welcome to today’s gist.
A strange kind of victory….
In the world's eyes, victory looks like triumphant cheers, raised trophies and unblemished champions.
We all love a clean victory. We cheer for the athlete who breaks the tape with a seemingly effortless stride. We admire the scholar who aces the exam without breaking a sweat. We are drawn to stories of triumph that are polished, graceful, and, above all, bloodless.
But the central victory of our faith, the very event that secures our eternity, is anything but clean. It is the messiest, most brutal, and most blood-soaked win in all of human history: IT IS THE CROSS OF CALVARY!
To call the cross a “win”, at first, seems like a contradiction. By every earthly measure, it was a catastrophic loss. A promising teacher and miracle-worker, betrayed by a friend, abandoned by his followers, condemned in a rigged trial, and executed in the most humiliating and painful manner the Roman empire could devise. This was not a victory; it was a crushing defeat.
Yet, as the Apostle Paul so powerfully declares, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).
God’s economy operates on a different calculus. What looks like foolishness is ultimate wisdom. What looks like weakness is supreme power. What looked like defeat is, in fact, a bloody, glorious win.
The Battle We Could Not Fight!
The cross was not a random act of violence. It was the climactic battle in a war for the souls of humanity –a war we were losing decisively.
Sin had severed our relationship with a holy God. The law exposed our failure, and the weight of our rebellion was a debt we could never repay. We were prisoners on death row, powerless to break our own chains.
Into this hopelessness stepped Jesus.
He did not come to offer mere moral teachings or a new philosophy. He came as a warrior King to engage the enemy head-on. But His weapons were not swords or spears. His weapon was obedience. His strategy was sacrifice.
The battle was fought in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He sweat drops of blood and prayed, “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). It was fought in the silence before His accusers, and in the resolve to not call down legions of angels to rescue Him. The battle was His perfect, sinless life offered as a ransom for our deeply flawed ones.
The Currency of the Covenant.
In the Old Testament, God established a covenant with His people, a binding agreement.
And covenants, in that ancient time, were sealed with blood. The blood of sacrificed animals was sprinkled on the altar and on the people, signifying the life-for-life commitment of the agreement and the terrible price of breaking it.
The writer of Hebrews explains that this was always a shadow pointing to a greater reality: “It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with human hands… He entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Nor did He enter to offer Himself again and again… But He has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of Himself” (Hebrews 9:23-26).
Jesus’s blood was the currency of a new and eternal covenant. His sacrifice was the “better sacrifice.” The blood of bulls and goats could only cover sin; the blood of the spotless Lamb of God could remove it completely. His blood cried out, not for our condemnation, but for our pardon.
OUR VICTORY, HIS BLOOD!
So, how is this bloody execution our win?
· Victory Over Sin: His blood washes us clean. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). The guilt and power of sin that held us captive are broken. We are declared “not guilty” before God.
· Victory Over Death: The cross was not the end. The empty tomb is the proof of receipt that the payment was accepted. Death, the ultimate enemy, was defeated. His resurrection is our promise that we, too, will be raised to eternal life.
· Victory Over the Accuser: Satan’s primary weapon is accusation. He constantly reminds us of our failures, our unworthiness. But we have an answer: the blood of Jesus. “They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb…” (Revelation 12:11). When the accuser points to us, we point to the cross.
This victory is not something we earn; it is a gift we receive. It is a win that is handed to us, paid for with a price we could never afford.
This truth must move from a doctrine we believe to a reality we live. The bloody win changes everything.
It means we can approach God with confidence, not because of our own performance, but because Jesus’s blood has made a way. It means we can live free from the shackles of shame, because our identity is no longer in our sin but in our Savior. It means we can face suffering and even our own mortality with hope, knowing that the war has already been won.
The cross was bloody, violent, and horrific. But for those with eyes of faith, it is also beautiful. It is the stunning portrait of a love so fierce that it would rather bleed than let us go. It is the place where justice and mercy kissed.
So the next time you are tempted to seek a clean, bloodless victory in your own strength, remember the cross. Remember the price. Remember the battle. And thank God for the day that Love won—with pierced hands, a crown of thorns, and a river of blood that became a fountain of life for us all.
That is our victory. That is our bloody win.
Hmm…. So many thoughts running through my mind but all I’ll say is “Thank you Gift🙇🏾♀️.” Thank you for this timely reminder, thank you so much! God bless you Ma’am, may your oil never run down.
And thank you dear gist partner, I am sure that you have been blessed, may God help us to remember.
TUNES AND THOUGHTS: we have 2 songs being recommended this week. The first is the hymn, ‘My faith has found a resting place’. This song is a reminder that we can rest in God, we can trust Him. Particularly, the chorus goes: “I need no other argument, I need no other plea; It is enough that Jesus died, And that He died for me.” Really, the fact that Jesus died, and rose, for you is all the argument and strategy you need for life. The second is also another hymn titled “There is a fountain filled with blood”. This song is the testament of the never ending power in the blood of Jesus: power to save, to heal, to help, to be all that you need it to be. Come, plunge beneath the flood! I pray that these songs bless you as you listen to them.
Audiomack: https://audiomack.com/don-moen/song/my-faith-has-found-a-resting-place-1?share-user-id=140072136
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/79WFEpcILqbZSFB5IrI8H7?si=VTPrI1uuTuyKsONtzRgUUw
https://open.spotify.com/track/5GrsjF6VQ2dQukKBewHyFk?si=bEd2JUQeSVyEndD396tvjw
YouTube Music: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnw9gmzxUDI&si=mm_N0GpQ4LNcGp2t
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=7dWjCpmYIIg&si=In3yr3pBZFsu7-AI
YouTube: https://youtu.be/z1WRt1Ag5gI?si=y-bY0H1LmpDhexxI
Well, that is that about that as far as that is concerned, see you in September!
Love,
Achenyo.
Thank you, Gifty, for blessing us and reminding us that some divine actions humanly seem stupid. I pray we always remember the victory of the cross
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