Armor of God
For the fullest treatment of each Armor Element described, check out "The Unseen Battle"...
For the fullest treatment of each Armor Element described, check out "The Unseen Battle"...
Belt of Truth
…HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH…
- Ephesians 6:14b
Summary:
What many in the twenty-first century call the Belt of Truth, Paul called girding up the loins with truth. What does this mean? It seems odd. But this is not oddity, it is clarity. Girding up one’s loins in antiquity was pulling up one’s cloak to be more like shorts and less like baggie pants, granting greater mobility and functionality. This means, if you have absent or incomplete knowledge and understanding of God’s truth (which we all have to varying degrees), part of your cloak is not securely tucked in. This grants the enemy something to grasp to slow you down or, in some cases, completely trip you up, hindering you from efficiently advancing God’s Kingdom.
Protecting:
To protect with God’s truth is to wrap yourself completely with His truth. Doing so will keep you from being tripped up by the enemy’s lies or anything that is not true in this world. It will keep you from be decelerated by lies and instead accelerated by God’s truth.
Wielding:
To wield God’s truth is to use truth against and in response to the enemy’s lies. These lies can come in the form of whispers. They can be uttered by the Goliaths (giants) in our lives. They can be an anti-truth we hear from another person. Regardless of source, each lie must be responded to with truth (i.e., God’s written and spoken revelation), otherwise lies will linger.
Tending:
To tend to truth, one must know the truth. To know the truth is to know God and His revelation throughout human history. This revelation has come by His Spirit, some of which has been written down in the Bible, along with the Spirit of the Living God continuing to bring new illumination and deeper understanding to what has been written down, and His continued speaking today. Such revelation is paramount to tending to the Belt of Truth.
Keep your cloak tucked in tight by the Belt of Truth, making it difficult for the enemy to tug.
Breastplate of Righteousness
…HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS…
– Ephesians 6:14c
Let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love…
– 1 Thessalonians 5:8
Summary:
Righteousness biblically is about living, walking, and hearing. Specifically, the righteous live by faith (Romans 1:17); the righteous walk by faith (2 Corinthians 5:7), which comes from hearing the word of Christ (Romans 10:17). Meaning, righteousness is wrapped up in what is heard from the Lord through His written Word (the Bible) and His spoken word from His Holy Spirit and what is done with what is heard. This also means that the strength of the Breastplate of Righteousness is dependent on 1) faith (what you hear) and 2) obedience (what you do with what you hear) (James 2:26). This is a breastplate that is righteous, full of faith and love as God intended. This is a breastplate that guards the most sensitive parts of being, especially the heart.
Protecting:
To protect the heart with the Breastplate of Righteousness is to hear and obey without delay. Obedience illustrates faith in action, which is alive, instead of inactionable faith, which is dead. It keeps the heart in alignment with its Master, Jesus Christ, all the while showing deference to His Lordship (John 14:15). Obedience softens are heart towards Him, allowing it to be in His hands continually. This is paramount as life flows from the heart (Proverbs 4:23).
Wielding:
To wield the Breastplate of Righteousness is intertwined with protecting in that a guarded heart that is obedience and deferential to God will refine what comes out of the heart in word and deed. This of course means that obedience to God and ALL His ways will change the heart. And a changed heart will not sow defiling words (Matthew 15:18). Instead, it obeys without delay out of faith in the One who commanded it and out of love for the One who created and saved it.
Tending:
To tend the Breastplate of Righteousness is also about obedience, daily. Practically speaking, this means ensuring that you are in full obedience to His commands (every single one) and you are also fully devoted to Him (loving Him with all). Prayerfully speaking, this means asking Him to search you daily (Psalm 139:23). Not doing so opens one up to complacency.
Live and walk by faith. Hear and obey without delay. Love God with all. And extending His love to all.
Boots of Peace
…having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE.
– Ephesians 6:15
Summary:
Shod your feet. Another odd phrase here. What does it mean? It means to bind on. In the context Paul was writing to, the shoe of a soldier was a high-top sandal of sorts that needed to be bound to keep them fitted tightly. In the same way, the Gospel of Peace, that which saves, is to be bound and taken everywhere the Lord sends us. Along with such binding, we are also called to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9).
Protecting:
To protect peace, is to protect what you leave behind, especially the Gospel. A Gospel without peace is ineffective, and it is a gospel of our own making. Imagine that life is a boat. Behind the boat there is a wake left. Leading to a few reflection-oriented questions. What kind of wake is left? Is it positive? Is it negative? Is it neutral? Such a line of questioning underpins the importance in making every effort to shod your feet with peace in every conversation, interaction, and activity your feet are set to.
Wielding:
To wield the Boots of Peace is shodding peace in every aspect of life, enveloping action and word with peace and with Jesus’ good news (the Gospel). Doing so changes motivations to be about making God and His peace known wherever we go and in whatever we do and say. It also changes how opposition is dealt with (Matthew 10:14). It shakes the dust off, and refuses to stir others up into uproar.
Tending:
To tend the Boots of Peace is to lace them up every day. It is about knowing the fullness of the Gospel as revealed in Scripture. Meaning, one should read the Gospel accounts regularly (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) to ensure Christ’s teachings and Gospel remains fresh and one doesn’t fall into complacency. This is a surefire way to keep the truest form of His Gospel bound around your feet and, in so doing, ensuring that it continues to transform you from the inside out.
bind Jesus’ Gospel around your feet and His alone.
Shield of Faith
…taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
– Ephesians 6:16
Summary:
Take up the Shield of Faith. To be done with purpose and intentionality. To extinguish fiery arrows. Why? Because fiery arrows hurt. As you saw from my personal story, arrows can damage one’s shield and can even lead to a broken and shattered shield. Notice also that the other elements listed before are specific to help you stand firm, while this element additionally keeps you from getting knocked out of the fight by the enemy’s arrows.
Protecting:
To protect with the Shield of Faith is to quell fiery arrows and stay in the fight. It keeps you from being pierced by lies. It keeps the mouth of the counterfeit lion from sinking his teeth into you. And the shield is the only defense against such attacks. It also protects the fighting spirit, and all other armor elements.
Wielding:
To wield the Shield of Faith is to position it to catch every arrow the enemy casts. How does one do that? It comes in the name of the shield—faith. Faith comes by hearing from the Lord (Romans 10:17). Meaning that to position your shield effectively, to catch ALL arrows cast your way, you must hear directly from the Lord where and how to uniquely position your shield.
Tending:
To tend the Shield of Faith is to crucify that which is opposite—doubt. Doubt in God shatters unsuspecting Shields of Faith. It is also about cultivating faith daily by 1) spending time with the Lord to hear from Him (through His Word and by His Spirit), 2) spending time hearing about and telling of the Lord’s activity, and 3) meditating on who the Lord is and what He has already done in, through, and around you.
Keep your shield up and out at all times.
Helmet of Slavation
And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION…
– Ephesians 6:17
…and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.
– 1 Thessalonians 5:8b
Summary:
The Helmet of Salvation is something you take. Never leave your hope behind. That is, the Living Hope should always be on your mind.
Protecting:
To protect with the Helmet of Salvation is about keeping despair away. Hope rebukes despair and sends it to the pit where it belongs. Yet, it also does something to the mind too. Hope, as a constant, has its ways of protecting the mind through the Living Hope.
Wielding:
To wield hope is to fight back against thought attack and thoughts of this world, but rather is a mind encapsulated and protected by the Helmet of Salvation. A mind protected is paramount to the other armor pieces. Without the hope found in Jesus Christ and the faith that assures eternity with Him, all other armor elements will fall by the wayside. Truth will become relative. Peace will become chaos. Faith will be lost. Righteousness will become debauchery. All because hope was lost and the anchor of our soul was raised.
Tending:
To tend to hope is ensure the state of hope is secure in the Living Hope, not insecure. It is about ensuring every chain of the anchor of hope is totally secure, without fracture. To this end, one must meditate on the moment of salvation often. This keeps eternity in view and the storms and winds of the world in perspective. Such meditation keeps your eyes fixed on the hope had in Jesus Christ.