The Armor of God Means Abiding, Not Fighting.

Lately I've been trying to learn the "Full Armor of God". This is something that's very difficult for me, memorization doesn't come easy. I can memorize things for a moment, but after they're not needed... I can't tell you at all what I memorized. Which is why this is taking me forever. But see, I don't want to just memorize it, I want to need it every day. As I am reading the Full Armor of God in Ephesians 6:11-18, I did a word search on the different pieces of Armor, and I've learned a lot from these things.

First, Paul tells us that we take up the full armor of God "That you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm" (Ephesians 6:13 ESV). I find it really interesting that Paul doesn't tell us to grab the sword, lace up our boots, and charge into battle. Instead he simply says "stand firm". So that's the first thing that caught my attention.

Secondly, Paul goes through each piece of armor that was typically used in Roman times. But I love how he describes each piece:
1. Belt of Truth
2. Breastplate of Righteousness
3. Shoes (Readiness) given by the gospel of peace
4. Shield of Faith
5. Helmet of Salvation
6. Sword of the Spirit (the Word of God)
Most of my usual readers have heard sermons, and done studies on these pieces of armor, and what area of the body they protect, why the Romans used them, etc. But I found something really interesting this time around.
Everything is a gift from God, everything points back to Jesus!!Now wait, what do I mean by that? Well... Look:

1. Belt of Truth

• "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father but through me." John 14:6 

• "The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever." Psalm 119:160

Truth only comes from God. We can't wake up in the morning and say, "Hey, I'm going to personify truth, everything I say is going to be truthful. I will only tell the truth today." It doesn't work, we fall flat on our faces every time we try. Instead, we have to look to a. Christ, and b. his word in order to grasp and understand truth.


2. Breastplate of Righteousness

• "Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins." Isaiah 11:5

• "But now righteousness has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it--the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe." Romans 3:21 &22

Righteousness is only achievable through Jesus, in fact, he is so righteous, he wears it like a belt. There are other verses that declare how awful we are compared to Christ, but the gift of God is righteousness through God's Son.

3. Shoes of Peace and Readiness

At first these things seem impossible to coexist, yet God is amazing and has given us readiness and peace, all at the same time.

• "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." John 14:27

• "For God is not a God of confusion but of peace." 1 Corinthians 14: 33

Jesus personifies peace, and he left it with us! Peace given by the gospel, and that peace is such an amazing experience, that it demands we be ready to share it whenever someone asks how we can be so "calm despite the storm" life may throw us. We can't have this peace without having Jesus.

4. Shield of Faith

• "looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God." Hebrews 12:2

Faith is founded and perfected through Christ. We can't produce faith on our own.

5.  Helmet of Salvation
This ones easy guys, I'm quickly running out of time as I type this post, but I'm going to guess you already know that:
Salvation is only through the blood of Christ. Not works of righteousness (Which, we already covered, righteousness comes from God!)

6. Sword of the Spirit (The Word of God)
We can't have God's word, without having God.

Isn't it amazing that the whole armor of God has to do with Jesus?! Every morning, we aren't to wake up and try to fight the devil, instead we wake up in the morning and put on Jesus.

I love how my youth pastor put it last week: "We are to be Jesus to God (worship), Jesus to believers (fellowship), and Jesus to unbelievers (evangelism)"

So how do we put on Christ?
Jesus already figured we would not be able to grasp how to be like him every day without exactly spelling it out, letter for letter, for us. So he did:

"Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:3-5

How cool is that? We get our energy to thrive, energy to be ready, and everything from Christ. It makes a little more sense when you re-read the first verse of the "armor of God" now doesn't it?
We're just supposed to "stand firm". We "stand firm" in Christ, he does the work, he helps us bear fruit!!

A lot of times, this seems way too easy. So we go looking for other ways to arm ourselves against life, and the "spiritual powers of darkness". We're a lot like David and the King. David decided to stand up for God's army, and went to tell Saul about it. Well, Saul knew that this little shepherd boy was going to go fight this 9 foot tall man. There's no way David would win "with just God", so Saul gave him some actual armor (probably to soothe his conscious.)

"The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.” Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off."  1 Samuel 17:37-39

 So David, of course, goes out to fight Goliath. Goliath teases him saying:
 

"He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals! ”David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

This is what we need to clothe ourselves in, Jesus Christ, him crucified, and raised.  Our war isn't against flesh and blood, but we also aren't fighting with foolish weapons, we need to stop chasing our idols and pursuing Christ, abiding in him, and letting the God give us the victory. I too often try to protect myself from things by doing stupid things that won't protect me. I try to avoid getting hurt by people, by not getting involved. I lash out at people when they're only joking, or only when they're trying to help, because I figure I have to protect myself. But I don't. God protects me.
I hope that this lesson that I'm slowly but surely learning will help you as your learning how to abide in Christ!
Keep Sinking Up :)