SPIRITUAL WARFARE.

DAILY DEVOTION.

DAY TWENTY ONE.

EPHESIANS 6:10-12.  Vs.10. Finally, my brethren be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, Vs.11. Put on the whole armor of God, that you might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Vs.12, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Paul has written a letter of great significance to the people at Epesus, in this passage he is showing them that are not in a physical battle but a spiritual one, how they fight this battle will have a great bearing on how they apply the rest of what Paul has written to them. The same applies to us. Paul tells us in verse ten that we are going to have to put on the whole armor of God, but to do that we are going to have to be strong in the Lord. Paul had already prayed for the church in chapter three that they would be strengthened with all might through the Spirit in the inner man. We need to be strong spiritually, we need to have a strong relationship with Christ through His word and through prayer. We need a good revelation of who Christ is in us and as a result, who we are in Him.  It is important that we realise that we must put on the whole armor, putting on only part of it will leave us vulnerable to the enemy. Note what Paul says at the end of verse 11, "That we can stand against the wiles of the devil." In 2 Corinthians 2;11 Paul says there that we are not ignorant of Satan's devices. Satan has his plans and his strategies that he will try to use against us, but when we understand what God's word says about Christ in us and who we are in Him, we can stand against his plans, as David said in Psalm 119;98, that through God's word he was made wiser than his enemies. We must understand that we are fighting against a spiritual hierarchy, there are different levels of spiritual authority in the kingdom of darkness, as we grow in the things of God and in our authority we will come up against stronger forces, this is why it is important that we understand how to apply the armor. Paul has fashioned the armor after the style of a Roman soldiers armor, so let's see how it works. We see in verse 13 that Paul again reinforces that we must put on the whole armor of God because there will be particular days that will be evil, we will be coming under greater spiritual attack and that we must take a stand and continue to stand. The first item is the belt of truth, the belt is the foundation of the armor, the breastplate is secured to it as, a soldier would gird his loins into the belt and his sword hung off it. The belt is called the belt of truth, the foundation of our armor is that what it says in the Bible is the absolute truth, God's word is true and we can totally rely on it. The breastplate protects the heart and the vital organs, we have a breastplate of righteousness, we are the righteousness of God in Christ, we are meant to walk in that righteousness. The breastplate is designed to protect our spirit, to protect who we are in Christ, when Satan comes to tempt us we can so no because we are the righteousness of God. The shoes of the gospel of peace, it is important to realise that these are our shoes, the word that we walk in, during the battle we can have peace because we know that Jesus has won the victory. Above all taking the shield of faith, we live by faith, we are saved by faith, our whole spiritual life depends on faith. Faith is what takes a hold of the promises of God and brings them from the spiritual world into our physical world. When Satan comes against us with his lies and tries to tell us that God's word is not true or when he comes against us with sickness or financial situations we can pick up the shield of faith, declare the word of God and the fiery darts will fall to the ground. The helmet protects our thinking, protects our mind. if Satan can control our mind and our thinking then he can control us. Salvation speaks of wholeness in every are of our lives, spirit soul and body, in Romans 12:2 says that we are not to be conformed or fashioned after the world, but that our lives are to be transformed or changed by having our minds renewed so that we can know and walk in the will of God, that transforming or renewing only comes through the word of God. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 it says that we are to take every thought captive that tries to establish itself above what we know to be true in the word to the obedience of Christ, we are not to allow wrong thoughts to take over our thinking, this is how Satan will establish his strongholds. And finally we are to take up the sword, which is the word of God, so when Satan comes against us we take a hold of what God's word says and use it to destroy his lies and his temptation, we can do as Jesus did in the wilderness and say, "It is written" Finally when Paul says that we are to put on the armor, this does not mean that we can take it off, it means that we are walking in what the armor says about us and about the word, it is the out working of it in our lives. So let us remember we are no fighting against people, but Satan will try to use people to get to us, he will try to use people and circumstances to cause us to sin and fall short of God's best for us. Let us be strong in the Lord and continually walk in the armor of God, knowing what it says about us and knowing that through Christ we have the victory. AMEN.