Spiritual Armor

Transcript

Hi Everyone, welcome back to the Living on Prayer podcast. I’m Emily and I’m excited to have you back with me for this series on God’s Love. We’ve finally come to the last episode in this series.  We’ve covered quite a bit in these episodes – we’ve talked about the definition of love itself, grace, mercy, forgiveness, love in action, spiritual gifts, and unconditional love. But today I want to talk about how God has provided us with a spiritual armor to protect us and how we can use it to allow God’s love to reach us and restore us and strengthen us and support us as we are walking through our daily lives. But before we dive into this topic I want to read a passage from First Peter, Chapter 5, Verses 8 through 11 “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are. In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation. All power to him forever! Amen.” 

I think about this passage a lot myself. As I mentioned before, when I was younger I was a different version of myself than I am today I think. I was such a naïve little girl, that's probably the right word. And I was definitely a little princess, not a tomboy at all. I loved to play dress up. I loved to put on makeup. I was definitely a girly girl, also I was very much a people pleaser, a great student, and a teacher’s pet for sure. I really loved to make people happy whatever way that might be. It really was something that I delighted in. It was finding joy in making others smile and laugh and finding joy in their happiness. And I guess that lasted for a little while and somehow life happened. You know how that is. I guess my sparkle got dulled over time through life experiences. And so now I definitely wouldn’t describe myself as a people pleaser anymore. I know my family or friends would say that about me now either! I do still find joy in others’ happiness but it’s different than it used to be. I think things like this happen to us, you know, life experiences change us. Some experiences by our own doing, by our own mistakes even. But some experiences are things that we have no control over. I’m sure we can all relate to those too. 

Now, here I am, this woman that I have grown into, and I admit that I have some walls that have been built up around my heart. I protect myself from various aspects of the world and people in it because of what I’ve been through and what I’ve learned and what I now know exists out there. Some of those walls are for protection because their needed, because I needed to protect my heart from so many things and people that weren’t looking out for me, weren’t helping me, whether they were doing so maliciously or not it doesn’t matter. In a way I call those walls my heart boundaries. I know they are needed and I had to learn to put them up the hard way unfortunately but I learned and it’s ok. Maybe because I am a heart person I was a more trusting person by nature, not sure to be honest, but I do know that I was very trusting and naïve as a child and young adult and through experience that has definitely changed.  And, and even more so as I’ve matured as a Christian I’ve continued to learn how evil and rough the world can be when it falls under Satan’s influence. Satan exists out there, he’s everywhere, and he’s out to get everyone, not just Christians. He's out for numbers. He's out to take us all so he can build his evil empire in Hell. And he's not a good guy and he has some pretty tough tactics that he's using. At some point I guess we can talk about some of those in another series or another way. But he's definitely working his way through folks and those of us who are Christians, whether we're passive Christians or active Christians, we are targets for him. The more active the bigger the target.  But let me remind you that everyone's a target. If you have breath in your lungs, you're a target for Satan. And that's again, very unfortunate, because he wants a big kingdom. He wants a big kingdom, not just on this earth. He wants a kingdom when his time is up here on this earth, and he's building his numbers. 

So love is not something Satan has. It’s impossible for Satan to have it. God is Love. We’ve talked about that already. Satan is the absence of God. He is the opposite, the opposition to God. Therefore, He can’t have love because God is love. 

So let’s put this into an analogy. I’m going to use black and white for this analogy. In this analogy God is represented as white and Satan is black. So then think of the world we live in, which is full of sin, as in between the white and black which would be all the various shades of gray because none of us here on earth are either God or Satan so we fall somewhere in between the white and black. Now what Satan loves to do the most is manipulate us, lie to us, pull the wool over our eyes, whisper in our ears, basically get us to become as close to black as possible, to become as dark of a gray as he can get us to be, to just pull us as far away from white as he can. In the meantime, though God continues to pour out Himself and His Love, his white if you will, on us constantly. 

And we all know that it’s impossible to be white in this world, to be Christ, but God just asks us to try our hardest, to do our best to be as Christ-like, to be as white as possible. So this whole podcast series is around God’s love and the aspects of it, the white really, and breaks some of those aspects down both from a spiritual perspective and from a worldly perspective to help us understand them but also to help us do exactly that, be a bit more Christ-like, a bit more white. It’s a lot easier being gray and getting darker into the gray. What I’ve also realized is how easy it is to get stuck in the gray. Meaning not wanting to or even allowing yourself to receive any of God’s constant pouring out of His white, you know His love, now allowing yourself to get even a shade of gray lighter even. You just stay stuck in the same shade of gray for a period of time, maybe even forever. That was me. When you aren’t receiving white, you aren’t growing spiritually. And when you aren’t growing spiritually you aren’t helping yourself or anyone else. It’s like being stunted. And Satan loves to stunt Christians. He knows he’s not getting a Christian’s soul but what he can do is get our time and service on this earth. So he tries to stunt our development and our service to ourselves and others for Christ and that’s a win for him. All those people we could’ve helped, all that time we could’ve developed ourselves spiritually gets lost and therefore he won. 

So when I figured this particular tactic out I got mad! I realized Satan got me. He beat me out of so much time, he really did. But I have been so determined to make up for it. And as I have become more and more aware of Satan’s tactics over time I’ve wanted nothing more than to share them. And I really can’t shut up about it either. When I see something, I say something but I told God many times, as much as I really hate being the messenger, I will do whatever He asks of me. 

So Paul says “Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith!” but how can we do that exactly? That’s where the armor of God comes in. Another gift we’ve been given by God to walk through this world and this life. It’s a choice to use the armor, we don’t have to put it on and many of use don’t which is so unfortunate. However, Paul tells us in Ephesians, Chapter 6, Verses 10-18 exactly what God’s armor is and how to use it: “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm. Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.” 

Those were Paul’s words in Ephesians as he describes how to resist Satan and stand firm against him. He tells us all that we are not fighting a battle that we can see but one that we can’t see, one against the evil spirits, one against the mighty powers in this dark world. And to take on this fight we have to use what we have, what we’ve been given and taught and I love how he put it into this visual picture of an armor for us because we are warriors. We’re all fighting against Satan and he doesn’t want us to be taken into Satan’s numbers. So if you’re anything like me then I’m not going anywhere without a fight! So Paul tells us how to protect ourselves, how to stand firm, how to hold the line, and fight if we have to. And that’s with putting on every piece of God’s armor so we can resist Satan, we can fight him.  And let me remind you again what the armor is from head to toe: the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of God’s righteousness, the belt of truth, the sword of the spirit, the shoes of peace prepared in the gospel, and the shield of faith. let me remind you that faith itself is active, it’s not passive. There’s a huge difference between having a knowledge of the truth and believing the truth. Learning about God, learning the bible and scripture is great but it doesn’t resist Satan. Believing it does. Making it a reality in your life, showing it as action, standing firm in those beliefs of faith, that’s what causes resistance. And as Paul says at the end of those verses, stay alert and be persistent in your prayers. All of this is action. Putting on the pieces of God’s armor every day, praying constantly, standing firm in your faith, these are actions that cause resistance against Satan. 

As I said before, Satan knows he isn’t winning the souls of Christians. He can’t count us to his numbers. But he can get us stuck. He can stop our impact and influence on others. Others that Satan might be able to win over himself. Just think about the influence that Christ had in just 33 years. I understand he was perfect and could perform miracles and could walk on water. But we are made in His image and we are all made with a purpose. We are all given the scriptures as a guide and we are all provided with the Holy Spirit within us and we are given our Heavenly Father, God himself to guide us and direct us. If all of us walked the path we were created, imagine how much better we could make this world in the next 33 years! 

In closing out this episode and this series on God’s Love, I really want to ask you a couple of things real quick. First, if Jesus himself was sitting on the seat next to you what is the first thing He would say to you? If the first answer that came to your mind wasn’t “I love you” then you need to be reaching out to Him more often because I can promise you beyond a shadow of a doubt that the first words to come out of His mouth would be “I love you” and you need to believe that. If you don’t know that or you don’t believe that then you need to be talking to Him a lot more often and I truly pray that you establish that intimate relationship together, I really do. And I hope that if nothing else comes from listening to this podcast episode or this series that you take away how much God loves you and how much He wants to connect with you and talk to you and have a relationship with you and I really, truly hope that your relationship with Him grows exponentially from this day forward! 

Second and last question and it’s a two in one question, what is the last thing you do before you go to sleep at night? And what is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? If the first answer that came to your mind didn’t involve God in any way then I really hope you update your routine to involve Him somehow. He is the reason you woke up and the reason you’re still here every day. Blessings and thanks should be given. And if you’ve had a rough day or you don’t want to still be breathing then all of that should be taken to His throne and left at His feet so you can sleep in peace and without a heavy heart. Letting God know what is going on in your life each day should be part of that intimate relationship so I pray that for you.

Now as I leave you for this series, let me pray this passage over us from the book of Philippians, Chapter 1, Verses 9-11 “I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God”

Thank you for joining today’s episode and this series on God’s Love, I hope you’ll join again on the next series. Until then as always please be safe! Bye everyone.