Thursday, February 4, 2010

The Holy Outfit (Spiritual Warfare Pt. 2)

Okay maybe the armor of God, sounds better, can't blame a guy for trying though! It's pretty clear what this post is going to cover. Originally this was a two part series, but now I've decided to flesh it out into three. Just to much to cover to not make it that way. Let's jump in though, alright?

Gearing up for battle needs to be the first priority. Scripture tells us that we are to put on the full armor of God, directly for confronting Satan. The armor of God consists of the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, feet fitted with the readiness that comes with the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, all gifts given through salvation in The Son.

Now I bet you are asking yourself, what does that even mean? Let me give you a little perspective. First we have the belt of truth. Of all the parts of the armor, I understood this one the least. A friend a while back made it pretty clear though. The belt in the armor, holds everything else together, it connects every other piece and it is also the first in the list. Thus, here we see the truth as the foundation of our armor. Biblical Truth keeps us held in Christ much the same way a belt keeps everything held to us.

Secondly we have the breastplate of righteousness, it's our main defense. It protects more than any other piece. Righteousness can be defined as living a life of justifiable actions, a life pleasing to God. This makes sense. As when we stay in accordance to His will, as written in His Word, we are said to be righteous as well as that being pleasing to God. It's interesting to note here that all of God's Word is for our protection. Limits are set and directions are given, so as to protect us from ourselves, the world and Satan. See the connection there?

Moving along, we have the feet readied by the gospel of peace. I love this one. It shows that we are to be light on our feet and ready spiritually, because of the peace that we have through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We know what awaits us in the next life and what blessing are on us now, so we shouldn't have anything weighing us down in this fight. You might compare it to Hebrews 12:1 even.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
 We also have the shield of faith. It mentions it's ability to extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. Thiss bit of armor is telling us to be strong in faith. The devil loves to try to play on doubt and fear. However strong faith in Christ, will stop such attacks without fail. Satan attacks from all angles, but deep rooted faith works as an penetrable barrier in our defense.

Our second to last is the helmet of salvation. This one took some time for me to get anywhere with, but after spending a bit of time on it, I realized that a helmet has one job. Protect the head. The head is the most vulnerable area of the body, it gets hit, and you are done. So a helmet of salvation is a protection given by our salvation in Christ from the gravest of injuries, namely that of eternal separation. No matter how grave and ill things may become, but nothing separates us from God's love that we received in our salvation. A good reference is Romans 8:38-39:
"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Finally, certainly the easiest of all the armor to understand, is the sword of the spirit, that is the Word of God. Here the sword is meant to be used both in an offensive and defense sense. Both to defend our faith, and also to attack that which is evil and corrupt. The Word shows time and time again, what the face of evil looks like, how to avoid it and how to instead follow a righteous path. That is the offense with the sword. 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 lists the exact forms of combat in which we use our bible as a sword:
"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete."
 This wraps up this part in the series. The last section will be more in-depth look on resistance and what else God's precious Word says about resisting the devil and all his influence.  Be looking for the next part in a few days.

Much Love,
Luke
“I often laugh at Satan, and there is nothing that makes him so angry as when I attack him to his face, and tell him that through God I am more than a match for him” - Martin Luther

5 comments:

Liz said...

Hi, Luke. I came over via your link on Demian's blog. Can't believe you're just 18. =) I enjoy your notes on Scripture...it's certainly ideal to reflect and respond to the Word. Keep it up!
God bless you.

-Liz

Luke said...

Thank you so much! It means so much to hear encouragements like that. Thanks again. =D

Patrinas Pencil said...

Luke, 2 new thots presented here. I have always loved these scriptures on the amour of God. I pray out loud and often - "Dress me Lord"! "Dress me"

I had never thot of the belt of truth as the foundation of the whole armor. But you are right, It is listed first and therefore I see how it is the foundation that everything else is built upon. That solid Rock "stand" in our position in Christ. He is the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. Jesus is TRUTH and the only way to the father. I never quite put that together that When we are girded with "Jesus" - in tandem with the other essential parts of the armor, we are girded for Victory. He holds our armor together for the battle before us.

The other was the helmet of salvation. I always thot it was for the protection of our mind. Ya know, be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. The mind trickles down into the spirit. What ever we put into the mind will seep nto the spirit. That was why I thot the mind was to be protected from the world - from satan. Salvation brings us into the family of God and therfore protected from eternal seperation from Him. I see that, but I think our mind is in peril to the temptation of the enemy when we are not wearing the helmet as protection. Salvation is freely given by Grace as right standing with Christ. We are identified as Christ's by our salvation. Our behaviors and attitudes and heart desires are changed supernaturally with the gift of salvation - it's a spirit and a mind transformation. A transformation that should be apparent in our daily walk. But the armour is to protect our body, our earthly tent which the enemy still has access to while we are on this earth. He has the ability to strike us against our body - thus the need for the protective armor. The helmet of salvation is in place as a protective piece to gird us from the attacks against our mind.

Manipulative tactics would be one of the ways that the enemy would attack the mind. Or Doubt and fear. Questions like "Did God really say..?" Wordly places and situations hold much for polluting of the mind, if not protected. All of these things begin in the mind. That's why every thot is to be captive to the obedience of Christ. Our salvation can't be stolen or won, as in battle, but our mind can be decieved - even tho we walk in salvation.

So, in summary - I don't mean to disagree with you. Lets make this a 2-way discussion - just as if we were in a bible study :) I believe that the helmet protects our thot life - It is anchored to the belt of Jesus through the breastplate of righteouness, while walking in the world with shoes of spiritual readiness - weilding the sheild of faith and defending our position in Christ with the sword of the spirit.

I'm open to your response. Go for it!

As always, so great to hear such a wise young mind speak forth such wisdom and truth.

Blessings, have a great week, Luke

Patrina <")>><

Luke said...

Hey Patrina!

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond! I love that you have that view. One of the big things I'm trying to get going here is discussion amongst those who read it, with their ideas and views on it. That's one thing I really try to make known to others, don't take what I say as fact, go and look for yourself and test it and see if it makes sense and see what it says to you. There may be times I'll be completely off the mark, and that's okay, I'm human. It's a great experience though because this allows me as well as the readers to grow when people respond to everything that's written. I actually agree with you, I believe I may have over simplified my idea of the helmet. Everything you said is absolutely correct and makes sense. That was one of the hardest to gain depth into. I can't find a single way to argue with your points! =D Curious to see what others thoughts are on it!

Patrinas Pencil said...

Thanks, Luke for allowing 2-way conversation. I so appreaciate that. most bloggers don't even espond to their commenters. :) Actually, you were one of htem inthe beginning! :) Sorry. It is nice to feel that connection in respoonse.

As for the helmet protecting the mind or not - I don't know, but it seems that way to me. Thanks for the open listen.

Difficult subject this spiritual warfare stuff. Proud of you for stepping up! Good job!

Patrina ><<(">

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