Armor of God - Part 2

Verse of the Day:  

Ephesians 6:16-17.

¹⁶ Above all, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Since this is a continuation of yesterday, I’m going to skip the explanation of where this came from. :)   And maybe shorten this one up a little since we realized after we posted it that it was quite long!  Btw, sadly I’ll be writing by myself this week because Lauren is off at Choir Camp (Nerd Camp). 

So you are already prepared with your belt of truth, your breastplate of righteousness, and your sweet gospel proclaiming shoes.  What else do you need in order to be a soldier in God’s army?

Okay, shield of faith.  I actually like how the Bible describes this one.  ‘Above all, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one’.  Woah.  The first part of this that really hits me is that it says ‘Above all…’.  So if you have no other piece of armor, have this one!  Your shield of faith will protect you by extinguishing ALL (not some!) of the attacks of the devil.  So. Cool.  Your faith is a tool more powerful that you can imagine.  It determines how you live your life, who you interact with, what you do with your free time. 

The real thought that comes to my mind when I think of a helmet is the fact that I never wanted to wear a bike helmet when I was a kid because it didn’t ‘look cool’.  I don’t know why I was so concerned with being cool as an elementary/ middle schooler, but I totally was.  My parents obviously wanted me to wear a helmet because it protected my head which was very important.  The definition of salvation is ‘Deliverance from the power or penalty of sin; redemption’.  So our helmet of salvation protects us from sin, persecution, all that not fun stuff.  And although it might not always look cool to wear a helmet (or in this case be a Christian), our Father wants us to wear it in order to protect us from pain. 

And our last piece of armor, the sword of the Spirit.  Swords again make me think only of medieval times.  Or Lord of the Rings.  Ha.  Okay, anywayyy.  The sword of the Spirit is talked about in chapter 4 of the book of Luke.  Jesus is tempted three different times by the devil and overcomes all the temptations by the ‘sword of the Spirit’.  A sword is used as protection as well as defense.  In the same way, we can use the word of God as protection and as defense.  Check out Luke 4:1-13.

The Simple Truth: In order to be a soldier for Christ, we need to be dressed in our armor at all times.  Being a Christian may not always look the coolest, but the reward is more than we can ever imagine.

Reflect:  In what situations does it feel ‘not cool’ for me to love God?

Apply:   Surround yourself with people who are dressed in armor too so that if you can’t defend yourself, they can help you.  Always be an example of what it means to live  as a Christian and influence people w/ your actions.

Pray:

Lord, help me to use my shield of faith in situations where I feel I am being threatened.  Help me to know that You are always with me and defending me.  Give me a helmet of salvation to protect me from hurt, and the sword of the Spirit to defend and protect myself.  Thank You for all that You do.  Amen.

Peace, love & prayers-

K