Swinging the Sword

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

SWINGING THE SWORD

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

We are just about completely dressed in all the armor. We have on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, our feet are fitted, our shield is in our hand, and our helmet is firmly upon our head. Now we have to strike that death blow to our enemy and the only way we can do that is with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. We remember when the devil was on the attack against Jesus, when he thought he was at his weakest, because of Jesus’s forty days of fasting and praying in the wilderness, Jesus answered all his attacks quoting the word of God. Jesus was using the sword of the Spirit, but in all reality, Jesus is the word of God. He was just being himself. The apostle John made it very clear.

John 1:1-2, 14

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning………...14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

NIV

Once again we see every piece of the armor of God is Jesus. He is the truth, he is our righteousness, he gives us his peace, he is our shield and our salvation. Now he is our weapon, he is the word with which gives us the victory over death. The word is our very lifeline. How can we ever live a life worthy of our calling unless we are in the word? We have to live the word in order to overcome the schemes of the devil. We have to be fully clothed in Jesus, the full armor of God, so the schemes of the devil will be clear and exposed to us. Once we can clearly see his schemes we can stand our ground against them. We have to know the devil is so deceptive and his schemes are designed to fool us into thinking wrongly and thus behaving in a wrong manner. If we are trying to live without putting on the complete armor of God, Jesus, we are simply being foolish and deceiving ourselves. We will certainly fall prey to at least one, if not more, of the schemes of the devil. Again, we remember the devil attempted to trap Jesus with his own words, just enough of the truth to sound sort of right, but not fully right. This is where that armor is so essential, as we are faced many times with what appears to be right, but is not actually completely right and full of the truth. It is possible we can even look at the word of God, the Bible, and read it with our own preconceived filter, which has been deceived by one of the schemes of the devil. Then we misread, misunderstand and thus live out a non-truth. Such living might include feeling jealous, or envious or hold a grudge, not being forgiving, or even engaging in gossip, or lusting after that which we such not, just to name a few attitudes and or behaviors which come from misunderstanding the truth, or simply refusing to understand it and live according to it, both of which are a result of the schemes of the devil and not being fully clothed in the armor of God so we can take our stand, stand firm, stand our ground and stand, swinging our sword.