The Armor of God

The Armor of God is the important component of our arsenal against Satan and his demons. Paul writes about its importance in Ephesians 6:10-18. I feel that it is important for us all to know and understand how to use the armor and apply it to our daily Christian lives. By using it every day, we find that even Satan’s subtle attacks against us are thwarted.

            Paul begins describing the armor with the Belt of Truth. We figuratively strap this around our waist. However, the application is very different in reality. It is about being honest, or always telling the truth, and never letting anyone else sway you from anything you believe to be truth without being able to show you proof that it is not in fact truth. My father and other Jehovah’s Witnesses are always trying to brainwash me, as they already have my father, with their lies. My father and I frequently battle wits when it comes to Bible teachings, the only thing is, he never listens to me. I listen to him enough to know he is way off base and frequently try to set him straight, but like all true Jehovah’s Witnesses, there is nothing one can say to sway them, because they do not actually listen to you. I have experienced this with more than my father to know the truth behind those words.

            Satan fights against us with lies, and it is up to us to remain truthful at all times no matter what the cost. This means refraining from even a harmless white lie. God sees a lie as a lie. It also means telling the truth even if it gets you in trouble. Being honest now and being punished for it now is better than getting caught in the lie later, and the punishment being more severe. I know sometimes it is hard to tell the truth all the time. I sometimes, instead of saying something, especially around Witnesses, I just keep my ideas and opinions to myself. I am not lying to not offend them, and I am staying truthful to myself at the same time.

It is always important to share your honest opinions and beliefs with someone, especially a person who isn’t a Christian. But, you have to know when to pick your battles, and with a Witness, that can be hard to decipher. I find it best to not even go there with them, because as I said earlier, they won’t really be listening to you anyway. The only ones who would be listening to you, would be the ones who are new to the cult, they don’t know how to not listen to you; at least not yet.

The Breastplate of Righteousness is second on Paul’s list. This protects our heart against attacks. It is the easiest place for Satan or his demons to do so. Our heart is the center of everything we feel. Our heart guides us in our decision making. We must remain righteous, or on the side of God, following him as best we can if we wish to gain life in heaven and then in paradise after Christ’s return. We cannot let Satan gain access and eventually control of our heart. We must protect it with the breastplate of righteousness. We must make sure we always have God’s approval of what we feel. It we don’t maybe our armor is not on and Satan got to our heart.

The Boots of the Gospel is the third thing that Paul explains to us. This is we witness to those not in on the truth about Jesus and God. Satan does not want us to do this. People will listen to us and then that means less people condemned to a fate with Satan. The footgear is our way of motivating ourselves to witness and give our testimony.

My testimony is filled with good things and bad things. Some people their story is mostly bad, and others’ is mostly good. It doesn’t mean that anyone’s testimony is not important. My testimony starts with growing up in a church. For the longest time I didn’t even really know what I was learning. It never registered. I stopped going to church when my grandparents did after my grandfather got sick with cancer. I started up a little bit in high school, but nothing ever really stuck with me. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to believe in Jesus or God. It was more that I just wasn’t in a setting that helped me grow spiritually. I had always believed that I was saved; I had always believed that Jesus was Lord and Savior of me. I had never taken the step towards baptism though. My grandmother had from the time I was little, tried to get me to take that step. I had never been ready though.

When I started college, I met my best friend. And, despite our distance from each other and not being able to see each other like we used to, I still think of her as that. She got me going back to church. I found out that was I was missing was a real church family. None of the churches I had been to before really showed being a family. I found that with her help. I got active in Bible studies and worked hard on getting to know my Bible, God, and Jesus all the better. I can now quote Scripture, find the majority of the books in the Bible with ease, and can pretty much answer almost any question anyone can ask me. If I can’t answer the question, I will either find it or find someone who does know it. I have a minister I can turn to in a time of spiritual need, though I am at the present moment without a church family and Christian fellowship.

After being saved for sure and getting baptized, my life took a turn in a different direction. I never turned my back on God or Jesus, but I couldn’t stop committing sexual sin. This went on for three years. It escalated from just being with one guy, to the course of several in that three year period. Also, I started allowing others to use my body for sexual pleasures in exchange for money. I was not in the best place. I had let Satan get to my heart, and had let him take me from God without even realizing it. He had me in his grasp, doing what evil things he wanted for three whole years. It took me three years to get free. It took me getting too ill to get through my last year of college and work to get free. I severed all connections with what had led me to being that way, and I worked on getting back on track. I tried a church in my hometown, but like before, it was lacking a sense of family and fellowship. No one was truly welcoming, and most of the people were elderly, what ones weren’t, were later in life by at twenty years at least in comparison to me. There were not any children and there were not any young adults.

My best friend had a couple of years ago given me a book to read. It was entitled Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s soul. It was written by John and Stasi Eldredge, and it made a huge difference in me the minute I really started reading it, unlike when studying it with Betsy. I like to continue to study it and I write a journal entry based on what is said in each section of each chapter. It helps see my progress or lack thereof from the first time I read it. I recommend it for all Christian women, or any woman wanting to become a Christian, and for the men, John wrote Wild at Heart, I recommend that for you. I have not read it, but having read Captivating, and seeing what it has done, and continues to do for me, I think that Wild at Heart can do wonders for a man. Perhaps I should get it for my father, but I doubt he will read it since it wasn’t written by the Witnesses. I wish there was a way to talk to him about all this stuff. I mean I have changed a lot because of this book; it really helped me understand a lot about being a Christian woman, well a woman in general actually. It just takes being a Christian woman to fully understand the message.

It doesn’t matter what our testimony is like, if we feel like weak, scared, or lacking to witness, Satan and his demons are pulling us away from God. Yes, there will always be people who do not wish to know the truth, but this doesn’t stop Jehovah’s Witnesses from trying to spread their lies, and it shouldn’t stop us from telling the truth either. In fact, it should encourage us. Just because people do not want to hear about Jesus Christ and his Lordship, does not mean that they do not need to hear it.

Paul’s next piece of Armor is the Shield of Faith. Satan wants us to turn our back on God and turn towards him. Our faith is what keeps us in God’s army. Without faith, we do not have much. Satan makes it seem like our efforts to obey God are futile, but they are not. We must remember the promises he has made. He always comes through with a promise. The Bible teaches us that. God has made several promises, and he has always come through. Satan cannot give us what God can. Satan leads to torment and death. God leads to life after our fleshly death. If our faith and trust in God are true, we shall live again. If it is not, we will never live again. That is what faith and trust in Satan promises.

The Helmet of Salvation comes next on the Armor. It helps protect our minds from becoming filled with the doubt Satan wants us to feel towards God’s promise of salvation. Remember, Satan used to be an angel in heaven with God. He knows what God promises is real. He fell from heaven because he wanted to prove that God was not worthy of ruling. That is what Satan still tries to do, but he is always failing, and soon God’s time limit he has allowed Satan to have will end. Satan already knows that God has won this war; and he is just biding his time claiming his victory. God won the war with Jesus Christ. All we have to do is believe in Christ as our Savior and know that means we have salvation. Of course, just because we have it, doesn’t mean we can let Satan rule us. Eventually, Satan will have managed to get us away from God. That means we could commit the unforgiveable sin: To denounce the Holy Spirit after having known it. This means saying that we do not love or care about God anymore.

The Final piece of Armor is the Sword of the Spirit. This is the Word of God, which we call our Bible. There are other Holy Scriptures not contained in the Bible, but those that you can find are left up to you. In fact, the Bible most of us use doesn’t have all in it that some others do. The Catholic Bible has some books in it that are not found in most. The Ethiopian Christian Bible is the same way. It has books in it that are not found in either the Catholic or Protestant Bibles.

This is our only weapon of offense. The rest of the Armor is designed to protect and this is made to attack. A good way to keep an attack from Satan or a demon at bay is to recite Scriptures. We should also focus on Scriptures that can benefit us when we have a weakness from our old sinful nature that Satan and his demons can use against us. I, for example, get very weak with very strong sexual desires. I am not sure why my flesh craves this kind of attention, but it does, and I have often been tempted to find a way to engage in the act with someone. I constantly have to remind myself that sexual immorality is not approved of by God. Also, I remind myself that that is the old me trying to come back out, as Casting Crowns points out in a song, it is My Own Worst Enemy. There will probably be a lot of Casting Crowns references to things, they are my favorite band.

Paul knew that we would need this Armor to get through our daily Christian lives. He knew that Satan’s attacks against us would be relentless. He provided the Armor so that we could be prepared to defend ourselves against him and his demons.

There is another thing I am going to add to our arsenal list. This isn’t a piece of armor, but it is equally important; especially if we wish for our Armor to work properly. It is prayer. Prayer helps get us through the really hard times. If we try to take on the battle alone, we will surely fail, I have experienced this for myself. It does not mean we are weak or anything. It just means that some things cannot be dealt with on our own. We need God to give us a boost. Praying to God gives us that boost. Prayer makes sure that we remember that we need God. Do not ever think that you do not need him, because we all do.