Today's Devotional
November 13, 2006
Subject: Be A Bullet-Proof Christian
Ephesians 6:11 - "Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil."
Ephesians 6:13-14 - "Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;"
Ephesians 6:16-17 - "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:"
James 4:7 - "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."
Much of what we hear or have learned about spiritual warfare talks about us attacking Satan and defeating him. However, there are a couple of problems with that. The first is, in ourselves we have no power to defeat the devil; he will beat us every time. The second problem is that Satan has already been defeated so we just need to learn how to live in the victory that Christ won for us.
We studied the Ephesians 6 narrative in bible study recently and it became clear to me that people who are teaching us that we have to "bind Satan" or "fight the devil" have missed God's view of spiritual warfare. Our posture against Satan is to be defensive. Note how many times God tells us to simply "stand" against the devil. In the James 4:7 scripture He says "resist the devil." All of this is defensive. In the Ephesians 6:17 passage He says to take the "sword of the Spirit." Most who teach about attacking Satan say that this is for offense, but I think that this is for defensive purposes too. Let me tell you how.
When we were in Baghdad, each day our small team had to drive through a most treacherous street that we nicknamed "Assassin's Alley." It was so called because of the frequent harassment American forces received while driving through. Our team drove in heavily armored SUV's and our strategy was only to fire back at the enemy if his weapons penetrated the armor on our vehicles. This was because our purpose wasn't to engage the enemy, although the enemy wanted to engage us. We were trying to reach our building each day so that we could do the good work that we were sent there to do.
That is the essence of spiritual warfare. Satan's purpose is to distract us. He does it by harassing us with the issues of life; money problems, relationship problems, lust, envy and a whole lot of other "fiery darts." Satan desires that we focus on fighting back on these issues. He knows that if we're busy fighting him, then we can't possibly be doing the "good work" that God has sent us here to do. Now, of course we must defend ourselves against his attacks and that's what the spiritual armor of Ephesians 6 is all about.
Today put on your armor. It's not so that you can go fight Satan, it's so that you can do the work that God has called you to do and you must resist Satan in the process. Remember, if you've got on your armor (faith, truth, righteousness), then no weapon formed against you will work anyway. You're bullet proof for sure.
