Next comes the Shield of faith. That's pretty self explanatory...our shield is our faith and God's Word tells us in 1 John 5:4 that everyone born of God overcomes the world, and the victory that overcomes the world is our faith. Interestingly in Revelation 3:5 we're told that he who overcomes which is all who are saved, will be dressed in white. Then in Revelation 19:7-8 we learn that the Bride of Christ is all those born again into the body of Christ which is the Church, and that they've all been given white to wear. Verse 8 tells us that the white stands for their righteous acts. (are you seeing the breastplate of righteousness?) See, all the pieces of armor fit together. One can't be worn without the other as it wouldn't fit correctly.
Back to our faith though...many times our first thought is "oh no! my faith isn't strong enough!" When we think that though, we're allowing one of the enemies flaming arrows to get us. The Lord would never send us into war without the proper equipment and without enough faith to actually win that war. He's not setting us up to fail, He's setting us up to win! We have to trust Him. If we truly feel our faith isn't strong enough, there's only one way to change that, and that's through studying His Word daily, for that's how our faith increases. The better we get to know the Lord and His Word, the stronger both our love and faith grow. Keep in mind too that God isn't asking us to have faith in ourselves, but rather to have faith in Him. When we say our faith isn't strong enough, it's because we're somehow thinking we ourselves aren't strong enough. We see ourselves as weak. We've forgotten what the Lord says in 2 Corinthians 12:9 - His strength, His power, is made perfect in our weakness! Instead of being afraid which is from the enemy, we should be rejoicing as Paul did in verse 10 when he said, for when I am weak, then I am strong! He realized that his weakness wasn't a fault, it was wonderful because by admitting that he was weak and unable to defend himself, then God was able to be strong through him. In fact the weaker he was, the stronger God appeared not only to him but to everyone, since everyone who knew him knew how weak he was! So it brings God great glory! So never fear that your faith is too weak, for the Lord Himself will pour out His love and faith on us. (1 Timothy 1:14)
The next piece of armor is the helmet of salvation. We need to know what it is and then, how to put it on. First the helmet covers our head, our minds. Remember the Lord has told us many times that our hearts and minds are very important and that we're to always guard them. The Helmet of Salvation links with the rest of the armor in that it too is concerned with the assurance of our salvation and all that we received from the Lord when we were saved. Unfortunately, because of lack of study, many don't realize what all they received and so don't use it. It's like when someone gives you a gift, and inside the card that came with the gift is an explanation that inside the gift are a number of other gifts for you. But since you didn't read the card, you're not aware of that and so don't look for the other gifts.
My grandchildren unknowingly actually acted this out for me on one of their birthdays. I'd given my granddaughter a purse that she could decorate and it came with the markers etc. But I'd also gotten her a journal with the same pattern that could also be decorated and some extra markers. I packed those inside the purse for her. She wasn't used to my ways as I don't see her as often as I see my other grandchildren. She was thrilled with the purse and immediately was getting ready to color it, but the other children were yelling at her to look inside it. She obviously didn't understand why they wanted her to, but she finally did as they kept insisting. That's when she found the rest of the gifts.
That's what many, if not most Christians do with our gift of salvation. We're thrilled with it, but we don't look any further to see if there's anything else. Since we don't look (in His Word) we can't and don't use those other gifts and then we wonder why we don't have an abundant life like He promised us. We blame God of course and some even give up their faith entirely, never knowing what could have been theirs. All they had to do was open God's Word and study it daily and they would have discovered those gifts, and they're fantastic ones that we shouldn't do without!
Just as my granddaughter couldn't use the gifts till she found them, so we can't put on the helmet of salvation until we've discovered the gifts the Lord included with our salvation.
Once we discover them it will give us a new perspective of ourselves. This perspective first includes the security of our position in Christ, that we are saved and always will be. That our salvation is eternally secure and guaranteed. Many don't even have that security which is the foundation for this and much of the armor. Next, with our salvation, we are made new, and God wants us to know in what ways we're made new. With our salvation, God also gives us the gift of cleansing our consciences; taking away all the guilt and shame of our sin. He has no desire for us to walk around with that burden anymore. He took that on Himself so we wouldn't have to.
Satan just loves to attack both these areas of our minds though. He constantly will attack people by telling them they're not worthy of being saved, they were never really saved, or that their most recent sin proves they're not saved or that they lost their salvation when they sinned again or some other such nonsense. He loves to cause us to feel guilty for our sins long after we've confessed them and repented of them. He wants us to feel ashamed, guilty and fearful. He's constantly beating us up about our sins, rubbing our noses in them (or trying to) and doing his best to make us feel guilty and ashamed or ourselves. He loves to bring up painful things that have happened in our past, things that have hurt us physically, emotionally,and/or mentally, or things that made us angry. As long as he can succeed at that, he has nothing to worry about because he's just rendered us totally useless to the Lord.
Satan doesn't want us to find and understand these gifts because he knows that when and as we do, our minds are renewed and we can then put on the helmet of salvation knowing it will protect our minds from his attacks. We were actually given this helmet at our salvation, but as with all the other pieces of armor, we have to choose to wear it each day. It's really another way of saying that we must choose to abide in Christ daily. Abide is another word for: walk, live, or remain in Christ. It's a constant and a continual "doing". A constant choice and it's not even just every day. It can be every moment even. Every time we make a decision -will we tell the truth to that friend, or will we lie; will we continue to think, feel and therefore live the same way we did before we were saved or will we study His Word daily and do what it says, allowing it to change us to be more like Christ?
I'll do the last piece in my last post next.
Back to our faith though...many times our first thought is "oh no! my faith isn't strong enough!" When we think that though, we're allowing one of the enemies flaming arrows to get us. The Lord would never send us into war without the proper equipment and without enough faith to actually win that war. He's not setting us up to fail, He's setting us up to win! We have to trust Him. If we truly feel our faith isn't strong enough, there's only one way to change that, and that's through studying His Word daily, for that's how our faith increases. The better we get to know the Lord and His Word, the stronger both our love and faith grow. Keep in mind too that God isn't asking us to have faith in ourselves, but rather to have faith in Him. When we say our faith isn't strong enough, it's because we're somehow thinking we ourselves aren't strong enough. We see ourselves as weak. We've forgotten what the Lord says in 2 Corinthians 12:9 - His strength, His power, is made perfect in our weakness! Instead of being afraid which is from the enemy, we should be rejoicing as Paul did in verse 10 when he said, for when I am weak, then I am strong! He realized that his weakness wasn't a fault, it was wonderful because by admitting that he was weak and unable to defend himself, then God was able to be strong through him. In fact the weaker he was, the stronger God appeared not only to him but to everyone, since everyone who knew him knew how weak he was! So it brings God great glory! So never fear that your faith is too weak, for the Lord Himself will pour out His love and faith on us. (1 Timothy 1:14)
The next piece of armor is the helmet of salvation. We need to know what it is and then, how to put it on. First the helmet covers our head, our minds. Remember the Lord has told us many times that our hearts and minds are very important and that we're to always guard them. The Helmet of Salvation links with the rest of the armor in that it too is concerned with the assurance of our salvation and all that we received from the Lord when we were saved. Unfortunately, because of lack of study, many don't realize what all they received and so don't use it. It's like when someone gives you a gift, and inside the card that came with the gift is an explanation that inside the gift are a number of other gifts for you. But since you didn't read the card, you're not aware of that and so don't look for the other gifts.
My grandchildren unknowingly actually acted this out for me on one of their birthdays. I'd given my granddaughter a purse that she could decorate and it came with the markers etc. But I'd also gotten her a journal with the same pattern that could also be decorated and some extra markers. I packed those inside the purse for her. She wasn't used to my ways as I don't see her as often as I see my other grandchildren. She was thrilled with the purse and immediately was getting ready to color it, but the other children were yelling at her to look inside it. She obviously didn't understand why they wanted her to, but she finally did as they kept insisting. That's when she found the rest of the gifts.
That's what many, if not most Christians do with our gift of salvation. We're thrilled with it, but we don't look any further to see if there's anything else. Since we don't look (in His Word) we can't and don't use those other gifts and then we wonder why we don't have an abundant life like He promised us. We blame God of course and some even give up their faith entirely, never knowing what could have been theirs. All they had to do was open God's Word and study it daily and they would have discovered those gifts, and they're fantastic ones that we shouldn't do without!
Just as my granddaughter couldn't use the gifts till she found them, so we can't put on the helmet of salvation until we've discovered the gifts the Lord included with our salvation.
Once we discover them it will give us a new perspective of ourselves. This perspective first includes the security of our position in Christ, that we are saved and always will be. That our salvation is eternally secure and guaranteed. Many don't even have that security which is the foundation for this and much of the armor. Next, with our salvation, we are made new, and God wants us to know in what ways we're made new. With our salvation, God also gives us the gift of cleansing our consciences; taking away all the guilt and shame of our sin. He has no desire for us to walk around with that burden anymore. He took that on Himself so we wouldn't have to.
Satan just loves to attack both these areas of our minds though. He constantly will attack people by telling them they're not worthy of being saved, they were never really saved, or that their most recent sin proves they're not saved or that they lost their salvation when they sinned again or some other such nonsense. He loves to cause us to feel guilty for our sins long after we've confessed them and repented of them. He wants us to feel ashamed, guilty and fearful. He's constantly beating us up about our sins, rubbing our noses in them (or trying to) and doing his best to make us feel guilty and ashamed or ourselves. He loves to bring up painful things that have happened in our past, things that have hurt us physically, emotionally,and/or mentally, or things that made us angry. As long as he can succeed at that, he has nothing to worry about because he's just rendered us totally useless to the Lord.
Satan doesn't want us to find and understand these gifts because he knows that when and as we do, our minds are renewed and we can then put on the helmet of salvation knowing it will protect our minds from his attacks. We were actually given this helmet at our salvation, but as with all the other pieces of armor, we have to choose to wear it each day. It's really another way of saying that we must choose to abide in Christ daily. Abide is another word for: walk, live, or remain in Christ. It's a constant and a continual "doing". A constant choice and it's not even just every day. It can be every moment even. Every time we make a decision -will we tell the truth to that friend, or will we lie; will we continue to think, feel and therefore live the same way we did before we were saved or will we study His Word daily and do what it says, allowing it to change us to be more like Christ?
I'll do the last piece in my last post next.
LiveJournal Tags: armor of God,belt of truth,bible,breastplate of righteousness,devotional,emotions,Ephesians 6:13–17,god's word,heart,helmet of salvation,Jeremiah 17:9,Mark 7:21,mind,proverbs 10,Proverbs 23:7,Satan's attacks,scipture,shield of faith,shoes of gospel of peace,spiritual warfare,Sword of the Spirit,thinking,thoughts
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