Monday, September 17, 2007

QYST Day 16 - The Full Armor of God

Listen
"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds.“ 2 CORINTHIANS 10:4

We're going to spend a little time now going through the armor that every Christian soldier needs to be wearing. Examine and see how you measure up. You won't feel prepared to go into the battle of winning souls if you aren't well armed.

Christianity isn’t for wimps. God put the heat of tribulation on Jesus in the desert (see Luke 4:1): "though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things that He suffered…" (Hebrews 5:8). How much more will you and I be tried if we want to walk in the footsteps of the Savior? If we want to rescue humanity from the fires of Hell, we must take control, both of our own fears and of the demonic restraints placed in front of us.

We need to know what our weapons are, and we need to have expertise in their use so that we might be effective in penetrating enemy territory. Ephesians 6:10-18 lists some of our basic inventories, where seven standard items are listed. First we are told to have our loins, "gird about with truth." So our first preparation for battle is to determine to speak the truth, the whole truth , and nothing but the truth… from the heart, without compromise.

When we are gird about with truth, the world will hate us. If we would just say that Jesus isn't the only way to God, or that you can sin and love God, or that the Bible is only one revelation of God to man, then we would have the world's smile. The unyielding truth may cause us to have to pay the ultimate price for our faith.

Today's devotion was excerpted from How to Win Souls and Influence People, chapter 2, beginning on page 14.

2 comments:

Former Follier said...

Why do Christians exalt martyrdom? Isn't that one of the earmarks of extremist Islam?

Also, the "truth" is incredibly subjective.

Unknown said...

Hey, I appreciate your comment. But, I'm not sure where you see me talking about martyrdom. The passage of Scripture that talks about the "armor of God" has to do with equipping ourselves for things we are doing in this life, and nothing to do with dieing for our faith. But, maybe you mean something else.

And, no matter what you think, the Truth is the truth, no matter what our subjective minds choose to interpret it as. You can disbelieve in traffic all you want, but if you step out into the freeway, you are still going to be hit by a car.