The full armor of God

  

Every problem if seen by the right angel is an opportunity to do God’s work. If a good person seems to have a problem with you. You could get gorilla on him or you could outshine your nature toward him. This will affirm your nature and will identify the kind of material you are made of. Besides, it will be practical education about conflict resolution between the faithful. It is always right and effective not only to preach the word but also to live it; as it will be a practical education, about the word of God, which is being observed in your life.

I have seen faithful, who think they are fighting foxes in the skin of sheep, fighting like foxes against their presupposed enemies. I guess to hide their sheep's nature and holiness, they use the skin, nails, and teeth of foxes to attack their presupposed enemies. They lie against their presupposed enemy, they organize to destroy the good and bad of their presupposed enemy, they insult and disrespect their presupposed enemies’ identity and name, and they fight the way the world fights. I guess they think fighting is only possible like wolves, but not as sheep. Yet, if you must fight as faithful, you have to fight like sheep.  

 

We are not wolves; we are sheep of the lord. We don’t fight like the world; we fight like sheep of the lord. We are kind as we love our enemies, but we are also wise because we think by the heart of the lord. We don’t walk in the darkness of this world, but we march by the light of the lord as sheep of the lord. Yes, we are simple beings, but our shepherd is the God of heaven and earth, which is not a simple being. That is why we are not scared enough to hate our enemies, we can afford to love those who hate us because the lord has our back. Yet to be with the lord, we need to be sheep of the lord, and we need to behave like sheep, not as foxes. God is not the shepherd of foxes but sheep who follow his lead everywhere, and who live by his commandments with full trust in his leadership.

We don’t jump to attack everyone who looks at us with suspicious eyes, because every beast, which could potentially attack us, is cadged behind a glass cage of spirit for our safety. If we must suffer, it is not because they can but because the lord allowed it so. We are what God said we are, not what the enemy said we are and will be. That is why we can afford to love our enemy. Is it not natural for a kid to love a cadged beast? We can afford to love those who hunt and prosecute us, therefore. If we can love those who hunt and prosecute us, why should we be like foxes toward our fellow faithful?

 

Our fight has never been with flesh and blood but with the spiritual powers of the darkness who work inside people. We don’t fight the people, but we unconditionally love them; yet we fight the spiritual powers inside them. To fight those spiritual powers, we need to have the full armor of God. With this armor of God, we will disarm, destroy, and cast out the powers of darkness inside people; at the same time, we will love the lost sheep of the lord to the love of the lord and their salvation by faith in the lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

We don’t fight people; we fight the darkness inside them. For that, we need to arm ourselves with the full armor of God. The first armor is the shoe of the gospel of peace. This shoe will make our journey to every culture and nation easy, as we are not preaching the God of one nation but salvation to all nations. We don’t tell people to become Jewish or Arab for their salvation, we just preach their salvation to the kingdom of God through faith in the lordship of the lord Jesus Christ that is to believe Jesus is God. This can allow us to peacefully preach the gospel of peace everywhere. In this gospel there are no dogs who are not included among the children of God; as all are called to the kingdom of God. Dogs are those who reject the gospel to live under their idol worship. They could make themselves dogs but the lord sacrificed the lord to make peace with every human being. If they are dogs, it is not because God said they are dogs, as the Lord died for their salvation, but because they prefer to be dogs of the devil.

 

The next armor is a utility belt of truth. We must have truth in our mouths and we must be truthful all the time. The truth of all truth is the lord Jesus Christ. Our word of God that we preach can stably rest on a solid utility belt, as we walk and rest if we have Jesus as truth and we are truthful in behavior. Our gospel must shine the ultimate truth, the Lord Jesus Christ, and also our behavior and manner should be truthful. This truth holds everything right in its place and will show our fitness as solder. Faithful is not supposed to lie. We cannot over-compete the devil in lie, but we can over-compete him with truth and the ultimate truth is the lord Jesus Christ.

 

Unconditional love, truth, and holiness are our weapons of mass destruction that the devil cannot stand against. If we hold the lord high in our life and preaching, and if we speak the truth all the time, our witness will stand on firm ground to outrun the devil. The devil can lie but he has to work for the lie to make it consistent forever. Making all lies consistent, however, is not an easy thing to do, especially since neither we nor the devil is designed for such a complex and never-ending web of lies. God did not make us to be complex liars. Our mind by nature is built for truth, not for lies. That is why people are not good liars; as we are not designed for it.    

 

Yet truth works for you. If you speak the truth, the devil can lie to hurt you for a while. The devil, however, cannot hold the truth back, forever. The truth that you spoke, therefore, will overshine you above the darkness of the devil around you. This is why lies will enslave you, while truth will work for you. You cannot compete with the devil in terms of lies, but you can knock him over long run with truth. After all, it is written that holiness and kindness will guide holy people to victory. Besides, if you are built on the ultimate truth of all truth, the lord Jesus Christ, the kingdom of heaven, and the armies of the lord are fighting for your honor. Who can stand against you if God is with you? Avoid any lie, and speak the truth all the time as this is the utility belt that holds your holiness in its proper place, and your word of God in a firm position. If you lie and people know you as a liar, your word of God may not be in its proper place when you need it, and your holiness may not protect you as much as it should be. So speak the truth, and especially speak about the ultimate truth, the lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ to the world around you.

 

Next, you need a breastplate of holiness. The best protection against your vital organs is life of holiness. If you live by hate, fight, selfishness, and anger, your vital organs are open for damage. Devils can mobilize anyone to attack you; you just cultivated fertile ground for the farm of the devil. Remember devils are around you, inside many people waiting for a good time to nail you in the cross. Holiness will therefore disarm those devils. If you are kind, nice, tolerant, people-loving, carrying, humble, with good character, sharing, and a good human being, you just arm yourself with people, and you disarm the army of the devil around you.

 

If you love God, if you love companions, and even if you love enemies, you are creating a big gulf between you and the devils. Devils do not control people, they influence them, and your holiness, therefore, needs to have a bigger influence on people. If the devil puts evil ideas in their mind, your holiness will make them rebuke themselves. Besides, the lord can fight for you much easy when you give people a reason to love you, not a reason to hate you. With holiness, you can face pump here and there, but your life will be stable and good. It would be like Abraham, and Isaac in the land of strangers. With sin, it would be hell life like the life of Jacob and his children. You may win at last, but you will witness that your ages were not as good as your fathers but short and miserable. Side by side with truth and unconditional love, holiness is your weapon of mass destruction against the real enemy, the devil. More details about holiness will come below, but for now, let us move to salvation.

                                                                    

Since your holiness is always a damnation cloth, the devil will work hard to make you sin and to remind you that you will not make it to the kingdom of heaven, while opening the gates of sinful life toward you. That is why your thinking has to be protected by the helmet of salvation. When the devil reminds you that you failed and you are a sinner, you remind him Jesus is holy and his holiness is given for your salvation. Devil will remind you about you, so you need to remind him about the work of the cross. When they accuse Paul of his past, they cannot kill him because Paul knows that he is saved by the blood of Jesus through grace. You have to believe you are saved by the blood of the lord, not by your work. That is strong protection against the devil who works 24/7 to make you sin so he can separate you from the kingdom of God.

 

Salvation by grace simply disarms the devil to make all his efforts nothing but void. This does not mean you can live an unholy life since you are saved by grace. Otherwise, you will die not by head wound but by heart wound. You are not justified by your work, but your work has to be holy as those saved cannot live in sin. It means you don’t have to be perfect all the time but you need to grow slowly to perfection, through a spiritual growth process. The question is not whether you are sinning here and there, or not; but whether you are marching toward a holy life or a sinful life. If you sin, confess to the lord, brash your dust, and move forward to a life of holiness.

 

Then the devil is going to attack you from every direction. Imagine the wave of social moments and thinking that an organized group can create on social media. If 100 million people join into social media and start speaking the same thing, they can move mountains. Now imagine devils everywhere organizing themselves against you from every direction. They will fight you in every direction, yet the kingdom of heaven is fighting for you. The devils are there organizing a fight, which is nothing but a fight with imperfect information, imperfect communication, and imperfect intelligence; while the host of armies, the lord Jesus Christ, is fighting your fight with perfect intelligence, perfect knowledge, perfect communication, and perfect strategy for your honor. After all, those who are with us are mightier than those against us, they are not even comparable.

 

We fight devils being blindfolded, and devils fight the lord being blindfolded; while the lord knows what they do before they do it. This fight is not won by depending on ourselves, as we are blind, but by depending on the light of the lord, who is blinding the devils. Lord came to blind those who see (the devils), and to give sight to those who are blind (us). The light that blinds devils is the Holy Spirit, and this Spirit of truth will give us light to our blind eyes.     

 

Nobody is mightier than the heavenly father, and his army. When the armies of the lord march in battle formation, the land before them is green like Eden and it is desolate land like Sodom and Gomorrah after them. Yet you don’t see kingdom of heaven, while you see the work of the devil around you. So pick the shield of faith and believe nothing will happen to you because the lord of hosts is fighting your fight. That is the shield of faith that you must pick when the devil keeps shooting its arrows of fire toward you from every direction. By following the lead of the Holy Spirit, with full obedience to God, be part of the army of the lord in faith, therefore.  

 

It is not imaginable that humans can stand against devils by themselves. Yet we did stand against them to win all the time. This is because heaven is fighting our fight. It is a simple fact that without heaven fighting for us, we would never have a chance to stand against them. We live a life of carefree life of flesh, while they work 24/7 to destroy us from everybody they are in. Even though we have no chance to win against them, the host of armies is always fighting for our victory. The problem for us is that the kingdom of heaven is not as self-evident as the problems around us. That is why faith is our shield. We need to have unwavering faith in the lord, no matter what we see and hear. Faith will protect us from all attacks of the devil and will give us peace of mind.

 

Faith will also make us very predictable in sight of God and will make it easy for the lord to protect us. Imagine a kid who runs off from your hand in random directions when he listens to any horn of a car in a big city. This kid is highly likely to harm himself and will make your life miserable. That is why you need your kid to have full faith in your guidance and to follow you with full obedience. That is safe for the kid and an easy life for you. Now we see how unwavering faith works in your favor as long as the Father is holding your hand to guide you.  

 

Then we have to fight the devil by the sword of the word of God. We don’t fight the devil by psychology, political science, theology, money, resources, and connection. We fight the devil by the word of God. Our weapon of assault is the bible and the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, who utters a word of God through us. This means you think by the word of God, you live by the word of God, you speak the word of God, and you teach the word of God. When the devil shoots toward you hate, anger, disrespect, problems, and fight, you shoot back the word of God. Speak the word, respond with the word, and live the word of God. Then you will see the devil whiling under your foot in anguish because the host of armies and his word is fighting for you.

 

This is how we fight the spiritual fight with the gospel, the word of God, truth, holiness, faith, and salvation. This fight has nothing to do with foxes and their ways. Because the world fights like foxes, are we supposed to dress like foxes? To confuse who? The foxes? Are we supposed to bark in the street like the dogs do? To scare who? The dogs? Even when we fight, our fight should be light to the world. The world has to see we are different kinds as we are not from earth but from heaven. As we are from heaven, we need to fight as an army of heaven but not as a pack of dogs and wolves, who are around us. If we are an army of God, who can stand against us? Who can win the world, except children of God? But we have to be children of God not only in name but also in essence.  

 

What surprised me to see among the faithful is that they learn tricks of dogs and foxes from the world to use in the assembly of the lord. They gossip, backbite, insult, skim, and organize internal rivalry against each other. Why? Do you forget God is watching you? The world is the world and does not know God, but you do. In the assembly of the lord, therefore, you need to be careful. As more is given to you, more is expected from you. In the bible, it is written about Israel that I have chosen you from all nations for myself, so I will hunt you more for your sins. The same applies to us, God expects better because we are given better.

 

Imagine when you meet your wife's father for the first time and how you behave right in every detail. You need to be like that in the assembly of the lord, you need to be extra careful in everything you do. This is not your house, it is an assembly of the lord and the body of Christ, which is purchased by the blood of the lord. It is not cheap assembly to play yourself. Play yourself in your home, but be in your best character in the assembly of the lord.

 

When you meet the parents of your wife for the first time, before marriage, do you care who did what among her family members, especially if she is very valuable to you? Not much. But you will try to be accommodating, understanding, and good-mannered toward the good and the bad in the family, to build your relationship with your future family. Why? Because you are becoming their family member if they will it to give you their daughter for your wife.     

  

In the kingdom of heaven when you accept Jesus as lord, you are a family member of the lord’s family and eternal life is yours, as long as you have love. Without love, your faith, your hard work, your connection with God, your prayer, your sacrifice, and everything else is worthless. Your faith is worthless without love, so you will not be saved by faith without love. Don’t fool yourself, unless you work harder to build love in the assembly of the lord, you don’t belong to God. Anyone who claims to belong to God without love is a liar as it is written. If you want to ensure your salvation, leave you in your house as that is your kingdom, be on your best behavior in the assembly of the lord. Assembly of the lord is not your office, it is not a government bureau, it is not a coffee house, it is not market place, and it is not your recreation center, it is the body of Christ. If you believe Jesus is lord, think a million times before defiling his assembly in any way possible. Be on your best behavior in the assembly of the lord, because it is a matter of life and death for you. Heaven and hell are in front of you. Be wise and pick heaven and that is through love. Then change yourself in your home, in work, and everywhere with the life of the lord. But be extra careful in the assembly of the lord, as it is not a simple place to make a fool of yourself.  

 

As a group of devils can easily organize instability and sin in the world and could create endless havoc if it is not for the host of the army who keep them in check, assemblies of the lord are also destabilized by dark forces. Imagine 20 devils working in one spirit in an assembly of 100 people who live a simple life. They will destabilize you by touching all sensitive points that can divide the assembly. Remember the devils did practice this trick for millenniums and we are too nave in our life to fall to their tricks.

 

There are two solutions to this. One is deliverance service, which is critical. Casting out of devils is critical in the assembly of the lord, especially when there is a harmony problem in the work of God or harmony to stand against the law of God. Yet the most important tool is to live by the commandment of the lord, which is holiness. A devil can create wind, hurricanes, waves, floods, and heavy rain but you can stand firm if you follow the commandment of the lord, and you teach it to others.

Imagine people hate you, so love them. People curse you, pray for them. People starve you, feed them. Do good without expecting any good from people. Have unconditional love toward God, fellow faithful, Good Samarians, and even your enemies. What the devil does is ignite fire by creating some conflict, you kill that conflict by responding to evil by good. This is the commandment of the lord.

 

If people insult you and you insult them back, you are playing the ground of the devil. If you respond with love, however, you just short-circuit the trick of the devil. If you respond to evil with good, people will see you are a good person to hate you. Remember God is also there to remind people you are a good person; so help God to help you.

 

If the devil ignites the anger of your brother and he slaps you, give him the other cheek with respect and love. This will replace fighting with harmony and believe me the devil himself will play nice around you then after. If you follow the commandment of the lord, you will have stable assembly against the winds and floods of the devil around you. If we are perfect as our heavenly father is perfect, we could have a stable assembly of the lord, which shines the light of the lord.

  

The commandments also include not fighting for status and position, but to do maximum effort and to demand lower sit and title, while honoring others around you. If you compete for status and names, the devil has a playing ground to spread you like dust in the wind. But if you do maximum work and keep honoring others, what is there for the devil to ignite, except to honor your name with others?

 

A great destabilizer is pride and a great stabilizer is humility. Pride is gunpowder waiting for a single spark to burn the house down. What a devil has to do is create some disrespect, attack, and pain somewhere and your pride will open your mouth and your sinful nature to flow like a river. Then your pride will not allow you to apologize for anything you do, yet you will demand an apology for your insignificant pain. After a few rounds of anger and apology, you will end up destroying the harmony of the assembly in pride. This is not a theory I know, it is part of my failure that I find hard to manage in some part of my personal life. Pride is a great destabilizer, while humility will work in the opposite direction to stabilize your life, and lord’s assembly.

 

They attack you, and you smile and forgive them. They insult you, you just take it easy. If you are asked to apologize, it is not a problem if you have humility. If they apologize to you, it is easy to forgive. Humility builds social cohesion and harmony on solid ground, and then slowly will build great honor for your name. Your humility will force people to love and respect you over time. While pride builds a big name for you which is floating in the air without foundation. That is why pride is the beginning of failure, and humility is the beginning of success.

 

This is how we fight devils, which is by the book as any good army, the bible. We are an army of the lord, and that is why in the Lord’s Second Advent we don’t receive him on earth like everyone else, but we join him in the sky to stand with his army. We are God’s army on earth, so we need to behave like the army of God therefore. We need to live by the constitution of heaven, not of this earth; as we are not from this earth but from above. Our kingdom is not of this earth but of heaven, so let us behave as ambassadors of heaven in this earth.