Put It On

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

PUT IT ON

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 have come to one of the great passages in this letter and even within the whole New Testament. Although the greatest truth is in Christ Jesus with God’s provision for our redemption, salvation, and sanctification, this is also about God’s provision for our daily lives in a corrupt world as well as the evil powers of darkness in the spiritual realms. But first, with all this provision available to us the primary factor in our wearing all God’s armor is being strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. When we examine the Greek word translated as strong, we see a more direct meaning of “To be empowered” or “To make strong”, thus we would believe that it is the Lord and his mighty power that empowers us to be strong, to be endued with strength. This would imply to us that within ourselves when we stand outside of the Lord, we have no power, no strength, no endurance, but instead, we are weak and vulnerable to all the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the spiritual realms. This is why we are admonished to be strong in the Lord. It is the choice we must make that is implied in the words, be strong. We could make the choice not to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Even as believers, we could attempt to live in our own strength and make an effort to exert our own power over our lives, which includes making our own choices in life, what we do, where we live, work, and play, as well as where we worship. When it comes to the choice of where to worship, we have seen believers make the choice to leave a church to go somewhere else because of hurt feelings or some other human reason. However, this being strong in the Lord, this being empowered, to be indued with strength depends on our living in Christ with his authority reining in our lives. We have the choice to either put on the armor of God or leave it in the closet as old, discarded clothes, or we could simply ignore God’s armor completely and try to live in our own strength, but we would fail miserably, for the battle in life is not about our strength, our flesh, and blood, it is about the spiritual forces in this dark world. Nevertheless, God has made his armor available to us and we must make that choice to put on the full armor of God so that we will be fully equipped to deal with all the evil forces in this world and in the heavenly realms. We need to examine all the armor, and why each part is so important, but for now, let us make sure we have put on the full armor of God.