When I was in my morning prayer today God was bringing it to my mind that we can't let pieces of our armor down. By this I knew he was referring the scripture Ephesians 6:10-18. (I will touch base on more about that scripture further down in the post) One of the things God kept bringing back to me was how in Roman times there were many battles that were won and lost simply due to armor that a person, or a group of people, had back then. It wasn't necessarily that a person had to be the best fighter to win a battle if they had better armor. The lack of good armor could open up weak spots in a battle and it was the job of the other person in the battle to discover and take advantage of those weak spots to beat their opponent. This is very much how the enemy tries to defeat us today and this is why God tells us in Ephesians how important it is to always be prepared.
In the first part of Ephesians 6 (verses 10-12) The Word points out very clearly that we are NOT to be strong in our own strength, which is what so many of us try to do. But we are to be strong in the Lord's strength. And the reason why is because we have no idea what we are up against, but He does. Oh we might think we do because of what we see in the physical realm....the circumstances before us, but verses 11-12 tell us that we are up against the devil. Then verse 12 goes on to say that we are not really wrestling against the flesh and blood we see before us, but we are wrestling against the darkness of the enemy. Think about that for a moment.....How many times in a storm you have gone through has it just been one thing after another piling up on you. Or have you watched someone who hurt you do something that may have seemed so out of character for them. Or maybe like Job, you have felt like something was out to just take you completely down? This is the darkness of the spiritual battle that you are really in. The enemy wants to wear you down, mentally break you down and ultimately take you down. He will go about finding your weak spots and attacking you there. But verses 13-17 tell us what we are to do to build ourselves up for such a time. How each piece builds us up (in God) and prepares us for whatever the enemy throws our way.
I can testify to this working because this piece of scripture is one of the things that brought me through my storm. It IS the thing that I went back to God again and again about and said "Your truth, Your gospel of peace, Your shield of faith, Your helmet of salvation, Your Word as my sword....God these are the things that are going to get me through this". And then I spent time with God building those things up. I let Him remind me that no matter how dark times looked, I had His salvation. I let Him show me how to be humble and live in His truth, even if that meant confessing when I hadn't been before. I let the gospel bring me peace and used the Word to stand up against the enemy when he tried to tell me that I should just give up. And then just like verse 18 says, I went to God in prayer. Not just prayer for the sake of prayer....but prayer as in crying out to God. Crying out for help, crying out for answers, crying out for strength and crying out for Him to show me His will for my life so I could walk in it! Knowing that these cries, that where coming from my heart, where the cries that God desired to hear because it was a time in my life that I was finally being the most real with Him and letting Him be the most real to me.
I have said this before in past posts, but there are 1 of 3 places you are always in. You are either just coming out of a storm, or you are in the midst of a storm, or there is a storm coming your way. So be prepared! When you are living in God's will the enemy wants to take you down, but when you are ready for the fight because you are staying close to God and living out Ephesians 6:10-18, then the enemy will not be able to find that weak spot in your armor. And you can begin to defeat him in your every day life before the battle even starts.
God, You are ALL we need to defeat the enemy. Your Word says that when we use the name of Jesus, satan must flee. Help us to allow You to make us strong and not to go into the battle alone thinking we can do this on our own. That is the pride and the ignorance that the enemy would love for us to fall into. Thank you for Your word that prepares us. Help us to remember that no matter how dark the storm looks, You are the one that calms the seas today just like you did over 2,000 years ago. In Jesus name, Amen
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