Sunday, October 25, 2009

Armor of God

Hey guys,
It's been a rather long day so I'll keep it short but try to maintain the same level of content you're hopefully expecting. Tonight, at the homeless ministry at our church I gave a short talk on the armor of God and decided that it was a worthy topic for the blog of the day too. Today, as I will on most Sunday's I will attempt to take a scripture reference and use it. I'll kinda explain my ideas for formatting tomorrow.

10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

-Ephesians 6:10-18


I am just going to briefly hit on the armor in this verse.

  • Belt of Truth
The belt of truth seems to be the easiest for me to forget about in the armor. As Jesus is the Truth, we need to live our lives in truth. Without the belt of truth we are very vulnerable as we have shown dishonesty. We need to maintain our truth for us to be verifiable and be able to show others the Way. Without the belt of truth you are succumb to "low blows" or what is considered to be below the belt. People can lie about you and no one will know what to believe or what is true because you haven't protected yourself with the belt.

  • Breastplate of Righteousness
This piece of armor is very important. Without it you truly do leave your heart open for attack. It protects you by you doing the right thing. If God wouldn't want you to go somewhere and you go anyways, you would be opening yourself to attack. This is the easiest piece to discard to leave yourself open. It also seems to me to be the easiest to maintain with a little work. By simply living your life in accordance and trying to do the right thing, you can maintain the breastplate and leave your heart protected from outside influences.

  • Feet Fitted with the Readiness
This part is rather simple to me. It simply means that you must know the gospel of peace. This is so you can complete the Great Commission and "go." That is what we are called to do, and this is what the readiness wants you to be ready for.

  • Shield of Faith
You must maintain your faith in Jesus. This part refers to that. If you can keep your faith strong, you can block Satan's attacks. Trials and temptations will be more easily thwarted by you with your faith than without it. The flaming arrows are no match for the faith you have in Jesus and even if they do cause you to stumble, they will not take you down and out of the fight.

  • Sword of the Spirit
This is the Word. If you have a backing in the Bible, you can win any fight. You never enter battle without a weapon, and you should never ehttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4628521370253654538nter the world without a Bible. The world out there is vicious and just having the Sword will help you to defend your faith.

  • Helmet of Salvation
This is the most important. You must have the knowledge of Jesus to protect yourself here. This is when you become saved. Without being saved, the full armor is incomplete and short of being able to protect you completely.

So I pray that you will equip yourself with the armor. The world is a battlefield, and you are fighting the war for Christ. You need to always be suited with your armor to be safe and to prevent Satan's attacks from being tragic. I pray that we can all suit up in our armor and take this war to the streets. There are people out there that need Jesus that we can only reach if we have our full armor on and take chances. Please, put on your armor and get on the front lines. We need soldier's of Christ.

God bless,
Gann

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