THURSDAY July 18th
Ephesians 6:11
‘Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.’
As we come back to this verse and move on from the first two words, we are told here in the process of putting on, what we need to put on, it is the whole armour of God and why we need to put it on ‘that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil’.
It doesn’t matter what our occupation is, but I can guarantee that everyone does what is needed to make sure we are prepared to fulfil the task, job, or occupation. When I was a panel-beater / car sprayer there were essential items needed and essential workwear needed to enable me to do the job with the maximum help and protection possible. I was a car sprayer, so I needed a spray gun and not a paint brush! Yes, I could have painted the car with a brush, but one thing was sure the customer would not have been happy. How often do we try to get by in our Christianity with insufficient tools and protection! We fail to read the word, we fail to pray, we fail to put on the whole armour of God, we try in our own strength rather than in the supernatural strength that God has made available to us.
Paul often uses language that speaks of warfare, as he was coming to the end of his earthly life he made this statement to Timothy, ‘For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith’, 2 Timothy 4:6–7. In his previous letter to Timothy he had also said, ‘Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses’, 1 Timothy 6:12.
Notice how Paul called it a good fight! It is a good fight because it is a fight against all that is opposed to God, everything that is opposed to his will and everything that seeks to undermine who God is as the sovereign God. A fight of good versus evil, right against wrong, a fight that needs us to be well prepared and protected, and God has given us his word, he has given us his name, he has given us the Holy Spirit, he has given us our testimony and the blood of the Lamb, he has given us the armour the purpose of which is to fight against the schemes of the devil.