By Sidharth Mohandas
There are a lot of unscriptural practices that we see among Christians in our day. As I was studying on the topic of armor of God, I came across a lot of clichés people use that are contrary to the instructions God has given us in His Word.
One of them is chanting the phrase “the blood of Jesus” in an attempt to protect oneself from the attacks of the enemy. Needless to mention the importance of Christ’s blood to be used as a plea against the attacks of the enemy [Read the article: Where is your plea?] and how the testimony of blood of Christ does play a major role in spiritual warfare, but it is never a substitute for the armor of God.
The purpose of the armor of God is so that we can stand against the wiles of the enemy [Ephesians 6:11]
There are 7 parts in this armor that God tells us to put on. We shall quickly deal with 5 of them in this article:
(1) Having your loins girt about with truth [Eph 6: 14]
During those days, to gird up your loins meant to draw-up and tie your lower garment between your legs as to increase your mobility. But before we go any further, we need to ask ourselves where this girdling is required.
1 Peter 1:13 tells us to gird up the loins of our mind. Therefore, as I dealt with in a previous post of how to prepare our minds for action, we need to prepare our minds by feeding it with truth so that we don’t become immobile at the time of temptation or trial. Problems can freeze our minds and make it cloudy. Therefore, it is necessary to have a clear and single mind about what we need to think. This preparation is the basis of the armor.
(2) Having the breastplate of righteousness [Eph 6:14]
As said in our previous teachings, the primary area the enemy attacks is our position with God. And one of the main tools he uses here is the tool of accusation. He will accuse you of your position with Him. Many of us even retract from approaching God because we are deceived into thinking that we need to earn our way into His Presence.
Here’s a vital point: When the enemy accuses you, never try justifying yourself. If you have sinned, God has made a way: confess your sins, for you have advocate with the Father who is on your behalf. Operate always in the boldness of His righteousness.
(3) Take the helmet of salvation [Eph 6: 17]
1 Thessalonians 5: 8 calls the helmet, the hope of salvation. This part of the armor as we all know covers the mind. But how do we cover the mind? With hope… Negative thoughts bombard when we face problems, and the only way to counteract them is to think positive thoughts in accordance to the Word. Hope for the best always.
(4) Sword of the Spirit, the word of God [Eph 6:17]
The Greek word used here for “word” in the above verse is rhema and it means “spoken word”. As we have been emphasizing in all our posts, we need to give voice to the written word so that it becomes a sword.
However, if you did notice, there is one part of our body that does not have a weapon and that is our back. I had written an article on this topic a while back so do read on how you can protect your back: Don’t turn your back!
