He’s Always There / Charity St. Clair / Don Marsh
He’s the Father of compassion;
He’s a refuge for the oppressed.
He’s the fortress of salvation;
He’s a Father to the fatherless.
God of glory, God of grace;
God of hope, and love, and peace.
He’s the maker of all things,
And He’s always there.
Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Ephesians 6:10-20:
The Armor of God
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.
19 Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
My Understanding: My husband concluded our time of devotions together last night with this passage of scripture, even though he and I were reading in Galatians 6. Then, this was my passage again this morning, which is a very familiar passage to me, as I have read it very many times. “I pray today, Lord, that you will make this passage of scripture fresh to me today as though I had never read it before, and I pray you will grant your servant the practical understanding that you want her to have today to be applied to her life. In Jesus’ name I pray these things, amen!”
Be Strong in the Lord
We are to be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. This is where we find our source of strength and power for daily living so that we can be strong. If we try to be strong in our own strength and willpower, we are merely operating in the flesh, and the flesh will eventually fail us, because we can’t fight evil with fleshly weapons. To fight a spiritual battle against evil forces, we need spiritual weapons and we need the source of all spiritual armor within us, in control, on the throne, living out through us, and that is the Spirit of God.
We are to put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes. Amor is “protective clothing worn in battle by soldiers; something that gives protection or acts as a safeguard” (Encarta). Protection involves “the act of preventing somebody or something from being harmed or damaged, or the state of being kept safe” (Encarta). And, safeguard is “something intended to prevent undesirable consequences from happening” (Encarta). So, the purpose of the armor is not just so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes, but it is for the intention of keeping the wearer of the armor from being harmed or damaged, safe, and to prevent undesirable consequences from happening. We need this spiritual armor, in other words, to keep us from having our lives damaged and harmed by sin’s deceitfulness, which not only has the great potential of destroying us, but also carries with it the real possibility of our actions bringing injury and hurt to others, most often to those closest to our hearts; our loved ones.
Rom. 13:12-14 tells us to “put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” Eph. 4:22-24 tells us to “put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Col. 3:9-10 says: “Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” Col. 3:14 says: “And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
So, in order for us to be able to be strong in the Lord and in his power and strength at work within us, and in order for us to be able to put on the full armor of God so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes, we need to have first of all put aside the deeds of darkness from our lives, not thinking how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature; and to have put off our old flesh natures - lies, stealing, adultery, cheating, & nasty talk, etc. The Bible teaches us: “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made.” "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins" (Mark 2:21-22). We cannot put on the armor of light; put on (be clothed with) the Lord Jesus Christ; put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness; put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator; and put on love, if we have not first of all taken off the old self and having been made new in the attitude of our minds.
Yet, this is the working of God’s grace in transforming us from darkness to light; from the power of Satan to God; and in crucifying our flesh natures and raising us to new life in Christ Jesus, so this is not something we can do in our own power and strength, or else it would be works-based salvation, yet we must yield to the working of the Spirit of God in our lives by allowing him to crucify our old flesh natures, to make us new in the attitude of our minds, and to put on that new self, by His mighty working power and his grace. Then, in his power and strength we can put on this armor of God so that we can stand against the devil’s schemes. We cannot fight off Satan if we are still willfully submitting to him in any way in our lives. For instance, we can’t fight off lust if we are not guarding our hearts by selecting our TV, movie or Internet viewing with discretion, checking it against God’s word, and praying for wisdom to know what things we are taking into our minds on a daily basis are standing in direct opposition to this working of God’s grace within us.
Stand firm with
Once we have, in the power and strength of God’s Spirit working within and through us for his purposes and for his glory, put off that old flesh nature and put on our new selves, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness, then we can stand firm against the devil’s schemes against us. A belt is used to hold up clothing or to carry tools or weapons, and it is usually placed around our waists. From a spiritual perspective, this idea of putting something around our waists has to do with getting ourselves ready to serve God. To “hold up” denotes some kind of support, encouragement, strengthening, so this “belt of truth” has to do with truth being something that gives us the support, encouragement, and strength we need to serve God and others. Jesus/God is truth and His Word is truth, so that is our main source of truth we need for service to God and others. Yet, this also denotes the need for us to be truth tellers, to speak the truth in love, and to not lie, deceive, or twist the truth for our own advantage. A breastplate is something that goes over our hearts, so we need to have hearts that have been covered by Jesus’ righteousness. And, we need to be prepared spiritually, and through the study of God’s word, in order to share with others the gospel of God’s peace, i.e. not the kind of peace the world gives, but peace with God.
Take up
In order to fight off the devil’s schemes, we need to first of all be in Christ through having been born again of the Spirit of God through death to sin and resurrection to new life in Jesus Christ, our Lord. We need to have put on faith that is not merely words, thoughts or religious expressions, but we need faith that is evidenced in our love for God and others and in our forsaking our old lives of sin and in our walking in obedience to his commands. True faith is faith in action, not in words only. So, the way in which we take up this shield of faith is by living what we say we believe, i.e. by putting that faith into practice into our daily lives. In the same way, we take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Notice that we “take it up,” i.e. we don’t let it lie on our shelves until we need it for something or to collect dust until it is Sunday or until we need to prove an argument. To “take up” literally means to seize with authority; to grasp, i.e. to appropriate – assume, accept, approve, implement, embrace and to adopt it into our lives. We need to be putting the word of God to action into our daily lives, and we do this first of all by spending time with God daily in his word and in prayer, sitting at his feet, learning from him, and then by obeying what he teaches us each day. We can’t use the word of God against the devil’s schemes merely by quoting it back to Satan. We have to be appropriating it into our daily lives.
Pray
We are to pray “in the Spirit,” i.e. this means to pray according to the will of God, not according to our own fleshly appetites, wants and desires. And, we can’t pray “in the Spirit” if we are operating our daily lives in the flesh of man. We can’t just live how we want and then use God as a spiritual Genie who is supposed to be there to grant all our wishes and desires. It doesn’t work that way. To pray in the Spirit means we pray even to know how to pray so that we make sure we are praying according to God’s will and not ours. So, the “being alert” part, I believe, has to do with watching our own lives to make sure we are not walking in the flesh, so we can pray in the Spirit, but it also has to do with being vigilant in prayer and keep on praying for people and not giving up or being easily discouraged when we don’t see immediate answers to our prayers. We need to ask the Lord for wisdom to know what and how to pray for people, too. The New Testament has many good examples of prayers that model for us how to pray. Paul expressed a personal prayer request in v. 19, which is what I would ask prayer for, as well. Keep on keeping on in the faith!
Cast Your Every Care / Roger Cabe / Arr. Don Marsh
All the things we need in this life
Can be discovered at the feet of Christ;
For we are but a breath that fades away.
The Lord will give you strength to carry through
If prayer becomes the first thing that you do.
So cast your ev’ry care on Him today.
Cast your ev’ry care on Him today.
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