Here is your daily encouragement words and thoughts. Today I continue to bring you encouragement from Ephesians 6:10-20 see yesterdays post for bible text.

I will now continue from where we left off yesterday. To recap

Paul having faced opposition to proclaiming Jesus Christ, urges us to put on the full armor of God and having done everything, to stand.

So what makes up our armor?

1. Belt of truth. Paul is using the Roman soldier as a real world example. The first thing that a a Roman soldier did to put on his armor was to fasten a belt around his waist. This belt held everything together. The belt was a place on which his armor could be attached. Paul suggests that our belt is the belt of truth referring to a believer’s integrity and faithfulness. This is our starting point on which all else can be attached.

2. Our breastplate of righteousness is the sanctifying righteousness of Christ, not us, but Christ righteousness protects our hearts from attacks of the devil. We only need to cling tight to Christ.

3. shoes of the good news of peace. Good shoes give us a stable stance in which we can withstand pressure that might otherwise tip us over. The good news of peace comes from our knowing of the gospel. It gives us the assurance and peace and the stability and strength to stand. This strength comes to us from God out of our trust relationship with Him.

4. Shield of Faith Our faith can protect us and like a shield it can be moved to protect what ever the attack. The development of our faith comes with our repeated exposure to Gods love and care. The more time we spend with Him learning to trust Him the deep our faith becomes and the better our protection becomes. We hear many stories in the gospels where Jesus said to people "Behold your faith has made you whole"

5. The helmet of salvation is our protection of the mind. It is the hope and the confidence we receive through our salvation, through Jesus Christ's completed work.

To this point our armor has been all defensive in nature. In foot ball we often hear the phrase that sometimes the best offense is a good defense as the defense can wear down the opponent.

Now on to our offensive tools of armor.

6. The sword of the Spirit, The sword of the spirit is the word of God. We are to preach Gods word as stirred by the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Believers need this “sword” to combat the enemy’s assault, we have the example of Christ when he three times when tempted by the devil. He used God's Word to establish and maintain his steadfast position.

7. Prayer. Finally in all situations prayer allows us to tap into heavenly power. We must be alert and pray continually. By pray continually I mean that you are in constant communication with God. Louis Giglio refers to this as constant communion with God in Prayer. It does not mean we are constantly uttering petitions to God but more so that we are in constant awareness of Gods presence with us. God has promised us that he will never leave us or for sake us. We just need to trust in that promise.

With all this now defined, we need to return to where we started to the first line of our text.

"Finally, be strengthened in the Lord and in the strength of his power". We need to come to the understanding that our strength in these situations is from God. We can not make it on our own. All our armor is of the Lord. We walk in the freedom of grace that He has provided. It all boils down to our trusting Him with our lives with everything. We must continually work on our relationship with God that we might use our armor and tools to His glory and not ours. We need God strength to make it through. For where our strength ends, Gods strength begins and through His strength I can do all things in Christ Jesus to the Glory of his holy name.

Amen

Music Encouragement You Are My Strength

Resources consulted
Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-c1985). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures . Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.