Side by Side with Faith

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

SIDE BY SIDE WITH FAITH

Eph 6:10-18

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 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. 13 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. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

NIV

Having our belt of truth buckled around our waist, or girded our loins with the belt of truth and fitted our feet with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace, we now take up the shield of faith, with which we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Again, Paul is very familiar with how the Roman soldiers used their shields. These shields were large and rectangular shaped. The soldiers would literally build a wall of defense standing shoulder to shoulder as well as some would hold their shields above their heads forming a completely solid block completely protecting them from any flaming arrows as they advanced toward the enemy lines. We know from history the first wave of attack in any battle was from the archers who were behind the front lines of the army. They would dip their arrows in pitch then in a fire barrow. Hundreds of arrows would be sent over across to the front lines of the enemy. If a person was struck with one of those flaming arrows the pitch would splatter and he would be set on fire, not to mention the arrow causing damage itself. So what do we learn from all this? First, we cannot fight against the attacks of the evil one without faith in Jesus Christ. He is our shield.

Ps 33:20

20 We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.

NIV

There is no way we can stand our ground unless we base our lives on the truth, have our feet on solid ground, and have our faith in Jesus Christ. Along we are defenseless and will fall prey to his flaming arrows. But, secondly, we also see that even with his armor, his shield of faith, we cannot stand alone. If we are trying to stand alone, we might well get outflanked. We need the other members of the body of Christ with their shields of faith standing at our side and us at theirs. This may be a concept that is a bit foreign to us who live in the post-modern church era. For the most part, we live separate lives and only see each other once or maybe twice in a week at some church activity. We smile at each other, shake hands, maybe a few we hug, tell each other, praise the Lord, pass the peace, and then sit alone in our pew, or seat and listen to a sermon. After which we might stand around for a moment and chit chat, but then off to our solitary lives. We might post something about what we are doing on some social media, but it seems rarely do we actually stand side by side to face those temptations, those attacks, together. It also seems we do not even want to admit we have temptations, which are attacking us. So then how do we deploy our shields together to form this wall of defense? Perhaps just admitting we need each other, we cannot survive alone, that we all have a need to be beside each other in a deeper way than just church, would be a good start. Maybe admitting we are weak, and not some mighty singular warrior able to strike a death blow to the devil all by ourselves, would be a good start. The fact is, if we take our lesson from the illustration Paul uses from the Roman soldiers' style of battle with their shields, then we would know we must need each other’s faith. We need to be standing side by side, however that looks like.