Take Our Stand and Stand Firm

DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

TAKE OUR STAND AND STAND FIRM

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

So now that we are being strong in the Lord and his mighty power and we have put on the full armor of God and we are aware of the schemes of the devil, we need to see how each piece of this armor works for our protection. But first, we should also notice there is a repeated phrase about standing our ground. We are told to put the armor on so we can take our stand. We are told to put it on so we may be able to stand our ground. We are told after we have done everything, to stand. Then we are told to stand firm. This sure looks a whole lot like not ever giving the devil a foothold, not giving him any ground whatsoever in our lives. But the only way we can do that is by putting on the full armor of God. Nevertheless, the idea is that with the full armor of God on, it is still up to us to take our stand, to stand firm. There is certainly something extremely special about the armor of God and, of course, his mighty power. We could not take our stand without either his armor or power. We have also noticed something about this armor in our former studies. But we will take another look later.  For now, we need to see the truth about taking our stand. If we were to think about the style of battle the men used in the time of Paul, and how he used the Roman soldiers’ armor as an illustration for the armor of God, we would know that they never turned their backs to the enemy. Retreat meant defeat, and that was totally unacceptable. There was no honor in defeat, so they fought to the death, or for their lives. There has been over the years commands to fall back, but that is not a retreat, but rather to take a better position to defend against the enemy. It is not hide-tailing to the hills, runner away in defeat. The enemy always chased them down and slaughtered them as they turned tail and ran. We cannot afford to live like that, refusing to even acknowledge we have an enemy bent on taking our lives. We must clothe ourselves for battle and face him head-on, taking our stand, standing firm and not even giving him an inch of ground in our lives. There are so many ways in which we could apply this truth to our daily lives and our relationships with others. That might take a whole chapter of a book. So, for now, let us put on His armor and rest assured in his mighty power, and take our stand.