Truth Be Told..

Armor Of God

If you have not already done so, I would recommend that you read the article on the on the battles page before reading this one. The reason for this is because battles are indeed spiritual warfare and really coincides with the Armor of God! With that being said; this write up is only scratching the surface as there are many levels of battle ranging from easy to darn right spirit breaking thus making it difficult to write about each and every one. However, the bottom line of any battle is the same: we need the full armor of God. We need our God and we need our Lord at all times!

Ephesians 6:10-20 we find the following scripture; Finally, go on acquiring power in the Lord and in the mightiness of his strength. 11. Put on the complete suit of armor from God so that you may be able to stand firm against the crafty acts of the Devil; 12. because we have a struggle, not against blood and flesh, but against the governments, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the wicked spirit forces in the heavenly places. 13. For this reason take up the complete suit of armor from God, so that you may be able to resist in the wicked day and, after you have accomplished everything, to stand firm. 14. Stand firm, therefore, with the belt of truth fastened around your waist, wearing the breastplate of righteousness, 15. and having your feet shod in readiness to declare the good news of peace. 16. Besides all of this, take up the large shield of faith, with which you will be able to extinguish all the wicked one's burning arrows. 17. Also, accept the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, that is, God's word, 18. while with every form of prayer and supplication you carry on prayer on every occasion in spirit. And to that end stay awake, constantly making supplication in behalf of all the holy ones. 19. Pray also for me, that the words may be given to me when I open my mouth, so that I may be able to speak boldly in making known the sacred secret of the good news, 20. for which I am acting as an ambassador in chains, and that I may speak about it with boldness, as I ought to speak.

The Pieces

Belt of Truth - Is it just me or does almost everybody we talk to mention "the belt of Truth" before mentioning any other piece of armor? I was thinking about this and you know what? every aspect of our lives, every battle we find ourselves in and every other piece of Gods Armor is attached to, starts with, and ends in the truth. Jesus came to do Gods will, to tell us the Truth and to teach us about God - and we are told that the truth will set us free.

Breastplate of Righteousness - We need to not only protect our hearts, but we also have to understand that our hearts are more than something that pumps blood and make us fall in love. It is in our hearts where our desires are stored, and as we determined in the "Battles - What are they" article; it is the desires we have in our hearts that our enemy uses to try to tempt us into sinning. Being righteous is not an easy thing to do sometimes because of our carnal natures and this is the reason why we need the Armor of God! Being obedient to God, bringing honor to His name is how we keep this breastplate in its place!

Gospel of Peace on your feets - We know that the Word of God brings us peace because it hits our hearts and is chocked full of truth! Our enemy likes to distract us so that we are no longer firmly grounded in peace. He will hurl all kinds of uglies at you; family issues, arguements with the neighbors, unpaid bills, ect. It is all just to try to make you upset, stressed, sad - losing your focus and forgetting what our Lord Jesus taught us about The Gospel, The Good News, if you will. We need to be grounded in these shoes so that we can boldly advance through these hurls unafraid and on focus! Did you know that The peace of God guards the hearts of those who are in Christ? we find this in Philippians 4:7

Shield of Faith - Without absolute faith we are dead in the water. Everything in our relationship between us and our God requires faith. This shield is meant to deflect these arrows of doubt, dscouragement,destruction - maybe that is why in Ephesians 6, it says "above all" in some translations! How can we stand against these attacks if we have no faith :(

Helmet of Salvation - As Christians, we are not to be of this world. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will." When we put on the helmet of salvation, we can avoid sinful thoughts and understand what is good and true. When we forget to do this, we are susceptible to thoughts that are planted in us by the enemy, who seeks to harm our walk with our God.

Sword of The Spirit - The most powerful armor and weapon in our arsenal. We know every word in the Bible is God inspired. We know the power of the word of God, as He spoke the whole of existence into being; and we also know when we know the truth we can defend ourselves against Satan, the father of lies - the enemy. The more we study our Bibles, the more we are able to recall various verses that are then used to turn the table on our enemy and instead of being attacked, we can make the enemy flee from us! YAY! Onward Christian Soldier! :)

Enters the hack..

Okay, Truth be told, it was only recently when I started to even understand these powerful pieces. I somehow thought that this armor was something that I could put on or take off whenever I wanted and believe me when I tell you, the armor would come off as soon as I found myself in any type of situation that made me even a little bit uncomfortable!

When I was growing up, I was known to lie to my parents and anyone else that was in some position of authority; yes..I would lie to anyone that had the ability to make my life even more uncomfortable! I always got caught in the lie, mind you, and it was only because of my own delusion of being smarter than the grown ups that I kept lying and hoping I would get away with it - NOT due to insanity lol!! It's funny how life works, because now I cannot stand when people lie; it totally sends me up and around the bend! I regret lying like that and sometimes sit and think about how I would not do things like that if I could ever just go back in time! Ahhh, but crying over spilled milk never got the milk back into the container, amen?!

Anyway, I really had no clue as to the Armor Of God, but you would have never known it by talking to me because as far as I was concerned it was something that everyone was given upon salvation and it was just something that would appear when God saw fit for me to have it on and afterward it was gone until the next time I needed it LOL..ohhhh man, I am not even kidding! And how to make each one work was anyones mystery. Of course, I did eventually sit myself down and do some study and research into this fine armor - what it is and how to use it. What I immediately realized was the answer to a question that keeps creeping back into my life from time to time, which was "He CAN protect me, He CAN give me the ammo I need; but will He!?" and as proper or as improper as that may be to some of you, to me it ended up being a stumbling block for some time because everything we do, we are to do in faith; if you have doubt - then that means faith is not to be found.

Doubt is a very serious seed that turns into a very destructive weed and should be yanked out as soon as it rears its ugly evil head! When I saw that it was this little seed of doubt that was sometimes keeping me from obtaining the much needed armor it was like a slap in the face! All this time it never entered my beady little brain that "will He" was never a question that needed to be asked! Of course He wants us to prevail against our enemies! Of course each and every battle we conquer brings glory to His name! It was never a question of "will He", but rather always a question of "will you."

What do I mean by "will you?" Will you stand in the midst of your spiritual enemies and boldly speak the word of God, the word of Truth? When the temptation in your head keeps pecking away at you, trying to wear you down or convince you that you should do "this thing"; will you remember you are wearing a helmet that protects your thoughts? That in one hand you are holding a shield that protects you from the many fiery arrows that our enemy shoots? Will you remember your chest is wearing a righteous breastplate that is protecting your heart all the while your feets are strapped in sandals that are always running to spread the gospel of peace, and in your other hand is the strongest weapon in the whole world - Gods Word, the Sword of The Spirit!

Finishing Up

I have to admit that doing this article was very difficult for me because I understand that there are times in our lives where we find ourselves in some very deep struggles and are attacked to the core; "valleys", I call them. And it is at these times when the Armor of God becomes so very important. I cannot hit on every level of spiritual warfare in this article, however I want to tell you that there is absolutely NO circumstance in our lives that does not require faith, trust and guidance in our Lord Jesus and our God. Folks, if you are in a valley - look up and remember you are not in this battle alone! Hold tight to your faith, stand firm on the truth, and do not ever ever be afraid to tell your Heavenly Father that you need His help, that you cannot stand on your own and how much you love and need Him. The whole battle depends on us realizing that we are not the ones doing the battle, but are the ones standing in faith and love.

Going into the times we are going in we most assuredly need to make sure we have the Armor of God on us at all times. Holding firm to the Salvational message and ready to tell anyone who will listen. Brothers and sisters, we have been repeatedly told in our Bibles that as we head deeper into these last days; there will be a time where we will find ourselves in situations that will call on us to speak the message, to make a stand and announce your faith in our Lord and King Jesus and of our love in our Heavenly Father and God. We need to have this Armor on and do not be afraid or ashamed, stand firm and be ready to speak! :). Each and everyone one of us is required to be ready to do battle, it is attached to our inheritance. We are warned that being followers of Jesus and children of God will bring us many battles, that we will be laughed at, mocked, ridiculed, hated and hunted down. Jesus told us to remember - (John15:18) "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you." So really to expect better treatment than our King and Lord Jesus received from the world, from the dark enemies would really be a grave mistake! No, we really need to understand the world and its dark forces hate us and do all they can do to try to strip the good out of our hearts. In James 4:4, we find this: "You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." Goodness!! I guess that means that if the world hates us for being Followers of Jesus and servants of God - then we might just be heading in the right direction and have delivered a devastating blow to our enemy! :)