WEARING SUITABLE ARMOR
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Eph. 6:1, R.S.V.
Everybody has seen her. Her hair is always a little unkempt, her lipstick just a shade too bright, and her clothes too youthful for her mature years. Her eyes wander the room as she enters, as if she is looking for someone. She is.
We all know that she's "no good." She hasn't followed the rules and is now paying the price. If we could see into her past circumstances, perhaps we would see that she had been trying for all her years to compensate for deep feelings of inadequacy. Granted, it isn't the acceptable way to handle her problem, but it is evidently the only way she understands.
Our text today talks about standing against the wiles of the devil. The Phillips translation says it this way: "So that you can successfully resist all the devil's craftiness." So much of our bad behavior is really human caulking in the cracks of our hearts. Satan has access to us because of our broken relationship with our heavenly Father. He has totally misrepresented God's attitude toward us, leaving us susceptible to his suggestions as to how we may best cope in life
There is an answer! We do not have to fall prey to the devil's trickery. We may put on "the whole armor of God"--truth, the truth about God and His attitude toward us, to gird the loins (figuratively, our vulnerability); righteousness, the restored right relationship between us and our God, as a breastplate (to cover our emotions); the gospel of peace, the good news of how God deals with fallen man, to shod our feet (to guide our way of dealing with each other); faith, that unshakable confidence we have in who God is, as our shield against the darts of the devil (to guard our right concepts about God); the helmet of salvation, that protective reality that we are safe with God (that necessary security in order for us to be able to make rational decisions); the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (that divine, outside-of-us testimony to all these things)
Only as we allow God to cover us with His protective armor--with the truth about Himself, and by our restored relationship with Him--will we find no need to try to compensate for the endless emptiness of life apart from Him..
Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Eph. 6:1, R.S.V.
Everybody has seen her. Her hair is always a little unkempt, her lipstick just a shade too bright, and her clothes too youthful for her mature years. Her eyes wander the room as she enters, as if she is looking for someone. She is.
We all know that she's "no good." She hasn't followed the rules and is now paying the price. If we could see into her past circumstances, perhaps we would see that she had been trying for all her years to compensate for deep feelings of inadequacy. Granted, it isn't the acceptable way to handle her problem, but it is evidently the only way she understands.
Our text today talks about standing against the wiles of the devil. The Phillips translation says it this way: "So that you can successfully resist all the devil's craftiness." So much of our bad behavior is really human caulking in the cracks of our hearts. Satan has access to us because of our broken relationship with our heavenly Father. He has totally misrepresented God's attitude toward us, leaving us susceptible to his suggestions as to how we may best cope in life
There is an answer! We do not have to fall prey to the devil's trickery. We may put on "the whole armor of God"--truth, the truth about God and His attitude toward us, to gird the loins (figuratively, our vulnerability); righteousness, the restored right relationship between us and our God, as a breastplate (to cover our emotions); the gospel of peace, the good news of how God deals with fallen man, to shod our feet (to guide our way of dealing with each other); faith, that unshakable confidence we have in who God is, as our shield against the darts of the devil (to guard our right concepts about God); the helmet of salvation, that protective reality that we are safe with God (that necessary security in order for us to be able to make rational decisions); the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God (that divine, outside-of-us testimony to all these things)
Only as we allow God to cover us with His protective armor--with the truth about Himself, and by our restored relationship with Him--will we find no need to try to compensate for the endless emptiness of life apart from Him..
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