BE STRONG IN THE LORD

Ephesians 6:10-18

vs.10

“Be strong in the Lord” is a command. Notice, He says “be.” He doesn’t just want us to ask for His strength in time of trouble, He wants His strength to “be” a part of our inner most being every step of the way. Our Father will never give us a command without giving us the power to fulfill it, hence the last part of the verse, “in the power of His might.” As we learn to walk in the power of His might we will “be” strong in Him.

vs.11

Just as God has a plan (His armor) to help us “be” strong in Him we would be very naive to think that Satan doesn’t have a plan to destroy us. One of the definitions of the word “wiles” is “to lie in wait,” and his diabolical plan is laid out in John 10:10, he comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

vs.12a

Look at this, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood,

Even though it feels like it, God says our battles are not with flesh and blood {2nd Corinthians 10:3-5 For though walking about in flesh, we do not war according to flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, 5 pulling down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought into the obedience of Christ;”
WE ARE FIGHTING SUPERNATURAL BATTLES “IN” THIS FLESH NOT “WITH” THIS FLESH.

vs.12b
“but against principalities, against powers, against the world’s rulers, of the darkness of this age, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Anywhere and everywhere “we are”, “Satan is” and he is lying in wait to steal, kill, and destroy us (John 10:10a). He wants to steal from us everything that God has given us, our joy, our peace, and especially His power. He wants to kill us, emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically, he wants to destroy any influence we have in this world, but the life God has given us, and especially the abundant life every believer can have trumps anything Satan tries against us (John 10:10b).

A little side note about John 10:10b, we see that Jesus gives eternal life (absolutely free gift) to any that turn from their sin and turn to Him. The second reference to life (“it”) is one we work for, we study for it (2nd Timothy 2:15), we learn to discipline our mind to think and speak what God says, we learn to manage ourselves (“time management” is such a misnomer) to allot time to the disciplines of prayer and Bible study to discover “all the spiritual blessings He has in store for us” (Ephesians 1:3).

vs.13
One of the greatest spiritual blessings we have is found in these verses we are studying, The Armor of our God. The first reference to it in verse 11 is a command, in this verse it is an offer. God extends this offer to us, waiting for us to take it to ourselves. He will never force us to take His armor but He will keep offering, unfortunately many have never studied His Word to discover that they even have a suit of armor. Just another of the “all spiritual blessings” we have waiting for discovery as we discipline ourselves to study His Word, such marvelous, matchless grace.

“withstand”
If Satan had his way he would destroy every last one of us, that’s his plan, his intent, but God says we can withstand him and even put him in his place when he gets in our face.
I love hearing my wife deal with Satan when he comes against us or the people we love. Many times I have heard her tell him “go to Hell where you belong,” (sorta feel sorry for the ole boy when she gets done with him, well maybe not.) She has discovered one of our most important spiritual blessings i.e., the indisputable authority she has in her Savior to resist the devil, and he does flee.

“stand”
He uses the word “stand” three times in something you can read in thirty seconds. I’m probably not the sharpest tool in the shed but when someone uses the same word that many times in such a short time frame, it tends to get my attention as to what they are trying to tell me. He wants me to STAND, He knows all about the enemy, He knows his plan to destroy me but He also knows when all else is said and done we will be standing because of His grace. He wants us to get a mental picture of us standing victorious over our enemy before we ever enter battle with him, and He has provided everything in His armor for us to be able to see ourselves that way.

As we look at each piece of this armor I think we will be able see the very nature of God in it.
vs. 14
The first piece of armor is “truth.”
John 17:17 tells us “Sanctify them through Your truth. Your Word is truth.” The word sanctify means “to make holy,” which comes from another Greek word that is translated “Holy Spirit.” We are sanctified the moment we receive Jesus as our Savior with the same holiness that is the very nature of God (2nd Corinthians 5:17). This position we have in Christ will never change, if it did we would have to change the very nature of God, and good luck with that because God cannot lie. He is truth, every Word He speaks is truth. We come to salvation when we finally turn from our old way of thinking and trust what He says. Although our position in Christ will never change our progression in sanctification will as we learn, through His Word, to renew our mind to think with the mind of Christ instead of the way we have always thought (Romans 12:1-2).

The second piece of armor is “the breastplate of righteousness,” which guards our heart. God wants us to get the fact that deep in our innermost being, (heart) we “are the righteousness of God in Christ (2nd Corinthians 5:21). God, the Father has elevated us to the same position that Jesus has with Him (please don’t frustrate yourself trying to figure that one out, just receive it because that is what He says). From the moment we receive Jesus as our Savior we will never be wrong with Him  again, sure there will be times that we sin and will have to make “things” right with Him and others but we will always be right in our Father’s eyes, (in fact, in Hebrews 10:14 my Daddy says I’m perfect). Listen, if this sounds too good to be true it’s probably Jesus. Use this new position as a springboard to launch yourself into this new life of walking in His paths of righteousness rather than the righteousnesses that we thought were so right in our own eyes (Proverbs 21:2).

vs.15
Third, He gives us some shoes. Before I got saved I hated a lot of people, hated Christians, even hated God, but that didn’t change His plan to bring me to Himself. As I was busy living a life of constant turmoil of my own making He sent somebody walking up to me where I worked, some walked into my home, some walked up to me in public places and they all had the same message, Steve, Jesus loves you and wants to give you peace. After I got saved I was so relieved to finally be at peace with Him, with others, and eventually with myself. I immediately started walking up to others to tell them about this wonderful Savior I had just met. At this point in my walk with Him I didn’t know enough of God’s Word to wad a shotgun with but I did read about a blind man Jesus healed and how he gave Jesus credit for His healing when questioned by the religious “know it alls.” The blind man didn’t know much about Jesus but he did know that after his encounter with Him he could see, and so could I (John 9:25).
We don’t need to know everything about Jesus but we do need to know God’s Word well enough (2nd Timothy 2:15) that we will be prepared to answer anyone that asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us (1st Peter 3:15).

vs.16
Fourth, and  “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.”
First and foremost our faith is in our Savior, our Good Shepherd, and like any Good Shepherd he wants to tend to our every need. He has already taken all our sin upon Himself, He intercedes for us, and He wants to help us extinguish the fiery darts our enemy hits us with.
For sure, there is nothing pleasant about being hit with a fiery dart, and our Savior never promised to shelter us from them, but as part of His redemptive work through the cross, and rising from the dead He has given us HIS INDISPUTABLE AUTHORITY over anything Satan throws at us. We, as joint-heirs with Him have the same authority He has. By our faith in Him we can remove mountains that rise against us (Mark 11:22-24). Many of the fiery darts that Satan uses against us deal with unforgiven, unresolved issues that turn into the mountains we all face in life (Mark 11:25-26).
We can also use His authority to simply come to Him. Unfortunately for many, when they find themselves laboring about something they labor harder to try to figure out how to deal with it. Jesus says just “come to me and I will give you rest,” even in the things we have brought on ourselves (Matthew 11:28-30). Sure, we will have to deal with the issues that caused us the unrest but we can deal with them better from the place of rest He provides for us.

vs.17
Fifth, He has given us a helmet to guard our mind. There are three aspects of God’s salvation for mankind. He saved us from our past, delivering us from the penalty of sin, He is saving us from our flesh after we receive Him as our Savior, delivering us from the power of sin, and some glorious, holy, beautiful day He is going to deliver us from the very presence of sin, when He takes us home to be with Him in eternity. Each is separate, yet work in tandem with each other to guard our mind from the onslaught of Satan.
The first and last are complete, He forgave me of all my sin and I no longer have a past (2nd Corinthians 5:17), and someday in the future I will be with Him, unencumbered by this flesh (can hardly wait). Nothing will ever change these two aspects of His salvation.
The present is where I need help and as any good Daddy would do, He has provided us with His power (vs.10) to overcome “this” flesh, and the devil (I try not to call it “my” flesh, because God says the old man is dead [Romans 6:6]). Just as the brain is a housing for the mind, so this flesh is just a housing for the real Steve Henry (put your name in the blank).
As we have already seen, Satan is warring constantly for the control of our mind. When he tries to use our past against us we need to use the mind of Christ to remind him that he is bringing up stuff that God has no remembrance of. We need to sic FIDO on him, Forget It and Drive On. God has forgiven and forgotten our past and He always wants us to continue on with Him not looking in the rear view mirror. FIDO is a biblical principle that we need to practice as a way to resist, and put in their place, the devil or this flesh when either of them bring up our past, whether it be from fifty years ago or five minutes ago. Speak it out loud, when something comes up that we know we have dealt with (1st John 1:9) say “Henry, Forget It and Drive On” (again, put your name in the blank). As we speak it out loud we hear the Word of God that produces the faith (Romans 10:17) we need to continue on.
Put FIDO into practice and you will discover how much your mind will be freed from things that we allow to bind us. You will also discover that you are allowing the Mind of Christ to control your thinking more.

Sixth, He has given us a weapon that this flesh or Satan doesn’t have a chance against, The Word of God. What He says matters, period. We all have our opinions, some are good, some not so good. We think, this flesh thinks, it is right in its own eyes (Proverbs 21:2) but God’s Word is the final authority in all matters pertaining to us in our battles with the enemy.
Jesus used this sword to combat Satan when he tempted Him in the wilderness, why should we use any other method.

vs.18,
Seventh, to complete and utilize our armor God encourages us to pray in the Spirit. Don’t complicate this, in Romans 8:9 God teaches us that we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. You are in the Spirit because of His Son’s sacrifice so don’t approach Him in some sort of slip shod manner, if you have unconfessed sin get that cleared up with Him and others, then, JUST PRAY like you are talking to your best friend. Get this down in your spirit, come to Him anytime, or anywhere as a little child comes to his daddy to talk to Him about anything. We are just as much in His Spirit driving down the road as we in our prayer closet or on our face before Him.
This kind of praying will involve His Word. A good place to start would be these scriptures we have just looked at. Thank Him for providing each piece of His armor as we get dressed for battle. As I shared with a friend of mine about “putting on” His armor every morning he reminded me that it was much more important to “keep it on” at all times.
This kind of praying will include praise to Him for who He is, not just what He does for us. He is Almighty God and has allowed us to have a personal relationship with Him.
This kind of praying will include gratitude, for without His grace and mercy we would all be doomed. Because Jesus is our great High Priest we have access to the very throne room of Almighty God and when we enter we can always expect to find His grace and mercy.
This kind of praying is all about just getting together with the One that loves us, just to be with Him.