After reading my devotional today, I wanted to expand on it.
It amazes me how God's Word can be read on so many different levels, and how you can get so much out of one single verse, and how every single verse in the bible is connected to every other one too. That's what amazes me the most. When I think I've finally found one that can't be connected to some other teaching, the Lord always shows me differently. That's difference between His Word and any other book we could read.
These last few years He's been showing me how His Word teaches us, grows us up to spiritual maturity, guides us through our every day life, strengthens us, encourages us, and totally replaces all the world's and Satan's programming that's been in our minds and hearts.That's how His Word "renews our minds". Furthermore, by doing that, the Lord's Word then protects us from the enemy by guarding our hearts and minds.
Over and over the Lord has shown me how dangerous and downright foolish it is for His children not to be in His Word daily like He commands us to, so that we can know His Word and apply it to our lives. It's also brought home to me yet again how His commandments are always for our good, and not just to ruin our fun or make more work for us. Lately the Lord's been showing me this about the armor He gives us to defeat the enemy with.
The armor I'm talking about is the armor spoken of in Ephesians 6. Let's take a look at it together and you'll see what I mean.
First He tells us that we need the belt of Truth, but what is that? It's God's Truth, which is of course found in His Word. We need to know His Truth, know His Word, so we won't be deceived by the enemy. Of course just knowing it isn't enough, we have to "put it on" which means we have to apply His Truth to our lives - we have to live it. For example, when His Word says we're not to lie, then we simply do not lie. We do not tell big lies, little lies or any kind of lie, for we know from God's Word that Satan is the author of lies. When His Word says we're not to worry, then we don't worry, we take control of our emotions instead of letting them control us, just as His Word teaches us to do by taking our thoughts and emotions captive and replacing them with His Truth. Again, we obviously must know His Truth, His Word, in order to be able to replace the lies our thoughts and emotions are telling us. If we know His Word, we'll also know that it's through our thoughts and emotions that most of Satan's attacks come. That's why it's so important to have on the belt of Truth.
Next we're to have the breastplate of righteousness. What is that though? The breastplate is to cover our hearts, and we know that our hearts are covered by Jesus, and that's what God sees when He looks at us. He sees the righteousness of Christ, not our sins. That's done when we're saved though, and this says we're to "put it on", so how do we do that? Again this is done by applying God's Word to our lives. Every day we must choose to live God's way instead of our own way. Sometimes we must choose that every hour or even every moment, but the choice is ours. We can't be protected if we deliberately choose to walk outside God's Will or His Ways.
The bad news for many people is that if they are not in His Word daily as we're commanded to be, then they're already walking outside His Will. It's one thing for us to be doing His Will and studyiing His Word daily and not have learned about something yet, and quite another if we're not studying His Word daily and don't know it. Those who are studying and just haven't gotten that far yet, aren't outside His Will, and will be protected, but those who aren't, won't be protected, for they are outside His Will. God is a God of love, but not the mushy so called tolerant love the world teaches. He wants what's best for us and He will discipline us and even punish us if we continue to be disobedient.
So the breastplate of righteousness is put on by choosing to live according to God's will, in His Ways every day. The good news is that we don't have to do this in our strength, in fact, we can't do it in our own strength, but instead must rely on the Lord. The part that's ours is to choose to live His Way, and apply His Word, then He will do the rest.
Next are the shoes of the gospel of peace, but how in the world to we put those on and what are they? Notice that the person is standing, in fact, standing firmly, not walking in these shoes. this isn't about spreading the good news. It's about having peace with God through the gospel. It's about having the confidence of knowing for sure that we are saved, and the only way we can do that is again, if we really know God's Word. The gospel says that through Jesus we have peace with God because we're no longer His enemy, now we are His children because we have been saved. Knowing that our salvation is guaranteed by God, we have no fear for there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear for fear has to do with punishment - and we know that we are forever safe from God's Wrath, for we've been saved through the blood of Jesus, now forever to be His beloved child.
The peace God gives us through the confidence of our salvation, when we're living in Him by knowing and applying His Word to our lives, is a peace so great that God says it will literally guard our hearts and minds - the two areas most vulnerable to Satan's attacks. This peace which originates from the gospel, our security in Christ, affects every area of our lives, since every are is affected by our hearts and minds.
The enemy wants to steal our peace and keep us frustrated, angry, fearful, anxious, bitter, hurt, and filled with shame and guilt, so he will do all he can to prevent us from knowing God’s Word and having His peace to keep us strong, confident and standing firm.
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