Don’t Give Your Heart Away – Part 4
Stand firm therefore…having put on the breastplate of righteousness [Ephesians 6:14].
Sinners sin and every human being is a sinner. So Satan never runs out of ammo to shoot us. He simply points to one or another of our sins and convicts us. The sinner responds by tucking his tail between the legs and crawling off to hide, defeated by Satan yet once again.
The Christian can do the same because he still does lose his temper or commit some other sin. Nothing difficult about doing that. After all, the old sinner still lurks inside, trying to have his way.
However, the new nature of the Holy Spirit also lives inside the Christian. He responds to Satan, “Get thee hence, Satan. For it is written, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved!’” When that happens, then it is Satan’s turn to slink off into the shadows to disappear, his face red as a beet. Sinners tend to do that, and Satan is the sinner par excellence.
The message for us to garner is this, my friends. We cannot combat the forces of darkness in our own strength, in our own righteousness. Only the righteousness of God can win out in such a campaign. Fortunate for us that we are the righteousness of God, huh? In Christ Jesus, that is.
So let us not be remiss in conducting spiritual warfare against the flesh and the world and the devil. But let us be sure we first don “the whole armor of God”, and that includes protecting our heart. We must needs depend on the Lord Jesus for the victory, not go to war in our own strength and righteousness. We must “put on the breastplate of righteousness”, which is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. There are no chinks in that armor.
So we prepare for spiritual warfare by “girding our loins with truth”. The Word of God is truth, both the living Word, Jesus, and the written Word, the Bible. We remove the entanglements around our feet, which tend to trip us up and prevent our effective functioning. We pull them out of the way and tuck them into the belt around our waist.
The Word of God removes the obstacles from our feet, allowing us to walk in His ways and not stumble. By this manner we can be effectual soldiers in the army of Christ. He can use us to overcome His adversary, the devil.
We also don “the breastplate of righteousness”. When Satan attempts to force us into losing heart and surrendering, we cling to the Word of God and allow God to go to war against Satan instead of us.
We don’t fight Satan in our own righteousness. We fight him in “the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”. We protect our heart with “the breastplate of righteousness”. The Lord provided it to us for that very purpose. As obedient soldiers in the army of Christ, we follow the orders given us from the “captain of the host of the Lord” (cf., Joshua 5:14). That would be the Lord Jesus.
So are you ready to march off to war now, Christian soldier? You are? That’s good. Oops! Not so fast! We still have several other pieces of armor to don before heading to Normandy. Normandy can wait, the pieces of armor cannot.
We’ll continue with the next piece of armor in tomorrow’s study. See you then. For now let us respond to Jesus’ invite. He wishes our company. Let’s not keep him waiting.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
Sinners sin and every human being is a sinner. So Satan never runs out of ammo to shoot us. He simply points to one or another of our sins and convicts us. The sinner responds by tucking his tail between the legs and crawling off to hide, defeated by Satan yet once again.
The Christian can do the same because he still does lose his temper or commit some other sin. Nothing difficult about doing that. After all, the old sinner still lurks inside, trying to have his way.
However, the new nature of the Holy Spirit also lives inside the Christian. He responds to Satan, “Get thee hence, Satan. For it is written, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved!’” When that happens, then it is Satan’s turn to slink off into the shadows to disappear, his face red as a beet. Sinners tend to do that, and Satan is the sinner par excellence.
The message for us to garner is this, my friends. We cannot combat the forces of darkness in our own strength, in our own righteousness. Only the righteousness of God can win out in such a campaign. Fortunate for us that we are the righteousness of God, huh? In Christ Jesus, that is.
So let us not be remiss in conducting spiritual warfare against the flesh and the world and the devil. But let us be sure we first don “the whole armor of God”, and that includes protecting our heart. We must needs depend on the Lord Jesus for the victory, not go to war in our own strength and righteousness. We must “put on the breastplate of righteousness”, which is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. There are no chinks in that armor.
So we prepare for spiritual warfare by “girding our loins with truth”. The Word of God is truth, both the living Word, Jesus, and the written Word, the Bible. We remove the entanglements around our feet, which tend to trip us up and prevent our effective functioning. We pull them out of the way and tuck them into the belt around our waist.
The Word of God removes the obstacles from our feet, allowing us to walk in His ways and not stumble. By this manner we can be effectual soldiers in the army of Christ. He can use us to overcome His adversary, the devil.
We also don “the breastplate of righteousness”. When Satan attempts to force us into losing heart and surrendering, we cling to the Word of God and allow God to go to war against Satan instead of us.
We don’t fight Satan in our own righteousness. We fight him in “the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus”. We protect our heart with “the breastplate of righteousness”. The Lord provided it to us for that very purpose. As obedient soldiers in the army of Christ, we follow the orders given us from the “captain of the host of the Lord” (cf., Joshua 5:14). That would be the Lord Jesus.
So are you ready to march off to war now, Christian soldier? You are? That’s good. Oops! Not so fast! We still have several other pieces of armor to don before heading to Normandy. Normandy can wait, the pieces of armor cannot.
We’ll continue with the next piece of armor in tomorrow’s study. See you then. For now let us respond to Jesus’ invite. He wishes our company. Let’s not keep him waiting.
To further research this issue, I direct you to my book Joshua: Volume 6 of Heavenly Citizens in Earthly Shoes. To purchase my books please go to:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B005PJ761C
https://sites.google.com/site/heavenl...
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