Equipped For the Journey

Armour of God

Do you do spirit days?

What kinda of spirit days do you do?

Any dress up days?

The point of a spirit day where you dress up is to build up the ethuziasum in the school so that you can study with more gusto!

However when you come to the spirit day you must prepare yourself with what you wear. Coming with your 80’s wear or coming with your tye dye shirt and tye dyed hair.

Half the day is just getting ready for the day, what you wear to school matters! If you show up in your PJ’s on a regular day of school, that would be pretty comfy but people would look at you like, who is this person that strolled out of bed and into a math test?

When it comes to being a Christian there isa few things that we need to do before be embark on that lifestyle. The first is to make sure that we are ready for it, and I am talking about what we are going to wear for the journey. How can we follow God and not put on his holy gear, his righteous rags, his stupendous slacks? Maybe you get my point.

We need to put on the Armour of God.

Ephesians 6:10–17 NIV

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

When we embark on following God we know that we are not fighting with swords and shields but rather our battle is unseen realms.

I tell you there will be times where you will face evil, if you follow God or not, there will be hard times that come. Paul here in Ephesians tells about how if we take up the Armour of God and prepare for life with God and against the enemy.

First it takes the buckle around your waist to keep everything together, that is truth. That you bust have integrality in your faith, do you believe what the gospels say? can you stand on the words of the bible and live by them or do they rubber band off and away?

With the belt you can standfirm knowing your pants won’t fall down, because with the truth of scripture, that what it says it truth in your life.

then the breastplate of righteousness which is to be put on, this breastplate is your hunger and thirst for righteousness. When you see injustice you seek to make it right and do by the wronged. The breast plate never makes you rightous but rather reinforces your right actions. For if your were to nelect righteousness and seek injustice your armour would have a large hole in it’s side.

The Feet fit with readniess to carry out the gospel of peace. Are you read yto take this message and carry it? Defence maybe in your mind when it comes to the armour but it is not about being a defensive solider, rather it is about carrying forward the good news of peace into the battle grounds of evil.

The shield of faith that withstands firey arrows. These arrows coming in the rude words, the broken promises, the selfishness, the fear the disappointment, all things of the enemy that are meant to make us crash and burn. Rather when we have faith we know that we can rely on God to deflect this sharp and fiery arrows taht hurt us so much. When we have faith in God in what he says about us we know that we are his love.

then comes the sword and helmet, that when he share his word, in fullness. The helmet that whoever believes in Jesus Christ is saved and that through his death we have freedom of sins, and through his resurrection that we are saved. What a wonderful thing to have on our head, that we are marked when people look at us we have a helmet on that say I am saved by Christ. Wear the helmet, You are saved! live like it! Make it known to others that Jesus died for you and he rose for you!

The sword is that all of what we have said may also be used in battle, that we can take our armour in the same way and use it when we face opposition and know that we will rise victorious because we have the Holy Spirit with us. We have the Spirit of truth to support us in our encounters. The sword is not our weapon, rather the Sword is the supportive character in our battles the one who conquers not with bloodshed but the one who conquers with love. A sword that is sharp but never draws blood.

So take up this armour this year. Not to bunker up tho, This armour is not to secure your bases and to make a defensive position this year. Rather this armour is to move forward, think about the parts?

Why have a belt if we are going to stay here?

Why have shoes if we are not going to walk anywhere?

why have a bestplate and a helmet and even a sword if all we needed was a really big shield to stand behind?

Put on your equipment and get ready to move forward! There will be hard things ahead, I can guarentee that for you, I wish I there wasn’t but there will be hard things ahead. Get ready for the journey, this is what a faith walk is all about.

Have you ever heard of the armour of God? Where?

Belt of truth, Breastplate of righteousness, Shoes of Gospel peace, Shield of faith, Helmet of salvation, Sword of the spirit; Which one do you think you are good for? Which do you think you need to work on?

Where is the armour of God applicable?

How can you grow in these areas of the armour of God?

Where can you use the Armour of God?

What does it look like to where the helmet of salvation in your life?