BE STRONG IN THE LORD

The Armor of GOD (Ephesians 6:10-18)

 

Character of Devil

1. The schemes of Devil   

    When Jesus begin His ministry in this world the first things that He face is temptation (Luke 4: 1-13 & Mat 4: 1-11). If we see and read it, devil also can use word of God to tempt. Devil so wise even he use the word of God to tempted Jesus. A scheme of devil to our life is not so far. Devil can use many strategies and trick to disturb us. Devil so easy to tempted us if we are not taking attention in every situation. We are using by God but same time devil also can use us to turn from the Lord through his schemes. We are not against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of devil. Maybe many of us think like this “no problem this is Missionary ship, this is God ship, God will protect us. Off course God protection always with us not because of who we are but because of God loves to us. God presence to us so wonderful even His promise to give us Holy Spirit and He want to make our body as a temple of God (1 Corinthians 3:16). But many times we against the Lord we want to destroy our self, we sin again before God, we hurt our brothers and sisters and so many bad things we do. We felt down in the middle of our daily life because of schemes of devil.

 

2. Power of dark world 

Jesus chooses twelve disciples to help Him in His ministry in this world. Like every one of us here, when we share to others people God choose me to be here. We renounce to the church, to the people around us even around the world that we are missionary chosen by God. Hallelujah. Amen. Jesus disciples work with Him for three years and they saw so many miracles Jesus has done. Dead man was alive, blind man can see, paralyses can walk, feed 5,000 people with two fish and five loaves even Peter himself experiences Jesus miracles when he walk on the water. This is wonderful things that they have a faith and trust in Jesus alone that He is the Lord of Lord. But my dear brothers and sisters what happen at the last time. Finally among of His twelve disciple there is Judas who betray Jesus because of devil was entered Judas. Devil is a great and soft enemy in this world that we can’t see. Even Peter who experiences the power of the Lord also denies Him. God choose us to be His disciple and His servant but same time Satan also will use us to disturb our fellowship with Lord Jesus. In new King James Version there is sentence “Precipitates”. Satan uses the principle to put in our life and our heart to limit our fellowship with God. There is nothing when we talk about power of God if there is principle that power of God will disappear. There is nothing when we talk about confession and repented but we are not confess and repent our self. There is nothing when we talk about love but our life full of quarrel, bitterness, jealous, hatred and revenge. There is nothing when we talk about truth but we live in untruth. Satan know who we are because he the one put this precipitates  in our life and our heart to limit our fellowship with God. So let us check our self so that we are not “Judas” in our congregation.

 

How to overcome- what we going to do?

1. Stand firm in God Armor.

    - Belt of truth

    - Breastplate of righteousness

    - Feet fitted with the readiness or preparation

 

Devil put a different precipitates in our mind so that we don’t have unity among us. We always quarrel each others because devil doesn’t like see all of us have a peace in God even among us. So let us release and leave all the precipitates of devil in our mind and apply the belt of truth in our waist, breastplate of righteousness and fitted our feet to readiness because God want us live in truth until the truth can redeem us from the evil power. But when we can live in truth? When we release and leave the principities, automatically we already enter into the truth but if we still keep the precipitates we are out of truth. Truth is defeated and loves but precipitates can make a quarrel and heated one another. Precipitates will build a wall to split up the children of God with one another. If we just thing that we are always true in God we will broke our relationship with our brothers and sisters but if we live in the truth of God we can have a unity in Him. 

 

2. Take up the shi eld of Faith. 

Apostle Peter reminds us that we need to against the devil with strong faith in God and put the devil as an enemy (1 Peter 5: 8-9). If we not against the devil he still out enemy. So we don’t have any choices except to fight them with our strong faith. Many people want to against the devil with many ways but they never close their heart from sin desire. It is nothing because we just depends the enemy not to fight and how long somebody can stand if devil continually attack us. Satan is so aggressive like a roaring Lion looking for someone to devour. To against devil we need strong faith to obey God. We need to run away from temptation and not doing sin again. We can against Satan with our spiritual gift and close our heart to commit sin, temptation and all kind of bad things. We need to against the devil because he is our enemy, if not he still attack us. So take the shield of faith from our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

3. Word of God

    - Helmet of Salvation

    - Sword of the Spirit

 

Defeat Satan strategic with word of God. When Jesus was tempted by devil, Jesus use the word of God to defeated. We need to have full of knowledge and wisdom from God through His word. When our heart and our mind have knowledge about word of God, it can become a helmet for our salvation. Word of God most powerful weapon, if we use it properly. But sometimes we use word of God in wrong way. We use it for debate and complain one another. We make and use the word of God to debate not to repent and same time we use the truth of word of God become untruth. Don’t be like a Jews people. They use the word of God to critic and complain others but they do not see their self. Don’t be become a hypocrite. Word of God use for encourages one another, to build, to love and to make others more close to God. God tells us in Joshua 1:8 that we need to meditate the word of God day and night so that we may careful to do everything. Don’t use the word of God to condemn other but use it to build others.

4. Pray in the spirit 

Praying is the key to get a successful life, answering for when we don’t have any way. Praying is a ability to successful more than what we respect. Praying is a secret communication between people and God and praying is a powerful weapon and strength to defeat every enemy and every own desire in us. Lord Jesus teaches us to trust and have a faith when we pray to God because many people don’t have an enough faith to believe. But if we pray just to satisfy our own desire, god will not answer it (James 4:3). But when we pray in the Spirit, believe that God will answer (Philippians 4:6). Everything that we ask to God, God will answer if what we pray for is pleased to God. But if what we ask and pray for just for our desire and to condemn our life and our faith, God has a right to reject our prayer. So we need to ask Holy Spirit to lead us in prayer so that our prayer pleased to God.

My dear brothers and sisters, our struggle is not against the flesh and blood, our enemy not visible enemy but invisible enemy. We will against the power of dark in this world, against the authorities, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. So take and apply the armor of God so that all of us ready to fight and attack the enemy with complete armor. Other wise we are not felt down in the middle of our daily life but we got a victory in along of our life.      <by: Bro James>

BE STRONG IN THE LORD. START YOU DAY WITH A NEW LIFE IN GOD