Day Four
Chapter 5 God's Armor on For Victory
Ephesians 6:10-20
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
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. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feel fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, for which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
Page 61
The Prince of Darkness fights a fierce, unethical, and diabolical battle for souls. Being the father of lies, Satan’s tactics are underhanded and deceitful.
So God doesn’t expect Christians to try to rescue souls out of Satan’s kingdom of darkness without supernatural help. God knows exactly what kind of protection, wisdom, and power we will need in this exasperating and fiendish battle.
Consequently, God provided supernatural strength, armor, and weapons for His soldiers. (Read the first paragraph of Ephesians 6:10-11 above.)
Honestly, I have not really thought about sharing the gospel could be a battle, but have I really sat down and looked at the challenges I face as part of my battle? Not really! I just think of it as life, but the reality could be attacks by evil one.
It is time to pray that God will open my eyes to the battles that I face.
Dear God,
Please open my eyes to the battles that I face. Give me the courage to learn more about all of this. Teach me your truths. I give my battles to you. Bind Satan in my life.
Page 63
When we Christians enter the battle to rescue souls, we automatically escalate Satan’s attacks on us.
Page 65-71
FULL ARMOR
Put on the full armor of God…Therefore; take up the full armor of God. Ephesians 6:11,13
Defensive Armor
1. Truth: The first piece of our armor we are to take up and put on is truth. Putting on truth means living truth every moment of every day.
2. Breastplate of righteousness: Having put on the breastplate of righteousness is obeying the sum total of God’s requirements. Righteousness is the believer’s personal lifestyle.
3. Feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace: It is the peace the soldier has with God through justification at salvation, (Romans 5:1) and the peace of God which guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7
4. The shield of faith: So our shield of faith is designed by God to intercept and extinguish the fiery darts of Satan. His fiery darts are those temptations designed to cause us to sin, thus making us ineffective or completely useless in our spiritual battle against him. But our faith is the shield standing between us and him that will extinguish them all.
5. Helmet of Salvation: This helmet of salvation gives us Jesus living in us. It is taking for oneself all that Christ in His saving work offers. Jesus in His death on the cross made available salvation to all, but we must reach out and take it personally to ourselves.
Page 72-75
Offensive Weapons
1. Sword of the Spirit: And the sword with which we counter –attack
Satan’s temptations is the Word of God.
2. Prayer:
Two kinds of prayer in the Armor of God.
The first prayer is prayer for each other personally. The other is prayer in proclaiming the Gospel
to the lost still in Satan’s kingdom.
So there we have it—all the defensive armor that we will ever need to protect us from the schemes of the devil, and the offensive sword and prayer to counterattack him directly.
It is easy to go through life not even thinking about sharing Christ with others, forgetting to put on the Armor of God and really thinking about the fact that Satan is out to destroy me. I can experience all kinds of troubles in my life and not even realize that it could be Satan out to destroy me.
When I put on the Armor of God daily, use the Sword of the Spirit, the Bible, every day I can gain the strength that I need to combat the work of Satan’s lies in my life.
What an incredible chapter. There is so much treasure here I could never possibly share it all. I would encourage you to read the book.
http://www.evelynchristensonministries.org/bookstore.html
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