"Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand
against the devil's schemes." (Eph. 6:11).
Now at first glance, this seems like a simple instruction...
put on the full armor of God. But when you really stop to
think about this thing for a minute, it actually reveals a lot
more than it says.
God, you don't have to go buy your armor or make your own,
you already have it somewhere. It's given to you as a gift
when you accept Jesus as your Savior. If you're not a child of
God, you have no armor, nor can you obtain it on your own.
Secondly, and pay very close attention to this: just because
it! If you were already wearing it, Paul wouldn't be telling you
to put it on! You have the armor of God in your possession,
but you have the choice of whether to wear it or not. You can
wear it today and take it off tomorrow. You can wake up and
leave it in the corner this morning, and come back for it after
lunch, if you wish.
It's not a part of your body. It's a part of your attire...just
like your underwear and socks. Wear 'em or don't. It's your
choice. A good many of us keep our armor all shined up in the
corner, stacked nicely and neatly on top of our Bibles...which
is why we've become so competent at getting our (censored)
kicked! We have no protection! Instead we choose to use it as
a dust cover for the instruction manual while we run around
naked getting whupped up on! This is the category that most
of us fall into, I would suspect.
Why are we to put on the armor?
schemes."
Now these two ideas, putting on your armor and standing
against the devil's schemes, were so important to Paul that he
mentioned them again just two verses later...just in case you
missed them the first time.
"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the
day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and
after you have done everything, to stand." (Eph. 6:13).
it on, for crying out loud! A lot of us don't even know we have
it, but we do. A lot of us that know we have it don't bother to
wear it, so it does us no good. It's not heavy like the armor of
the medieval knights. We don't need help slipping it over our
shoulders and buckling it in the back. All we have to do is
pick it up and put it on! It's for your own protection!
"...so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to
stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to
stand."
So you can stand against the devil's schemes. So that when
So that after you have done everything you can do, you can
still stand. You can keep getting knocked on your kiester all
day long if you like...day after day, week after week and
month after month. But you don't have to. You can stand. If
you want to. If you choose to wear your armor.
1 comments:
Hey Kathy! Excellent post! People tend to read that passage and skim over it with the attitude "I believe in God and so He will take care of me no matter what. I wish people would understand that yes, He wants to take care of us, we are His creation. If we have accepted Him in our lives and LIVE for Him He will keep us safe. Putting on the ARMOR OF GOD means we need to study His Word, know what He desires for us, what He expects FROM us. We need to talk to Him, and get to know Him to have the Armor of God be strong enough to withstand Satan's fiery darts. We need to have God's Word in us so strong that whatever Satan throws at us, we can come back at Him just as Jesus did in the wilderness saying, "it is written". That and prayer are the only things that will strengthen the armor. The problem is too, that even people who have the armor of God and wear it, sometimes think that they can wear it when it is "convenient" but lay it aside when they get angry, say what the flesh wants them to say, and then "put it back on". We need to learn that the Armor is not to be done that way. We need to keep it on at all times.
OOPS! I did it again. Whenever I read a subject I'm fond of, I tend to comment too much and "write a book" for a comment. Sorry. I loved your post.
God Bless,
PJ
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