SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/12/2019
8:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-5 “Intro into the Believers Armor”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ephesians 6:14-15
Message of the verses: “14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round
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.”
I
desire to talk about the last two ways that Satan attacks believers in today’s
SD. We looked first at the eight way
Satan attacks believers and that is by leading them into worldliness, and he
does this by enticing them to let the world squeeze them “into its own mold.”
“And do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will
of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” “Don’t let the
world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-make you
so that your whole attitude of mind is changed. Thus you will prove in practice
that the will of God is good, acceptable to him and perfect” (Rom. 12:2
Philips).
It
is easier to do this when things are going well, when there is financial
success in the country you live in. John
adds the familiar verses from 1 John 2:15-16 “15 Never give your hearts to this
world or to any of the things in it. A man cannot love the Father and love the
world at the same time. 16 For the whole world-system, based as it is on men’s
desires, their greedy ambitions and the glamour of all that they think
splendid, is not derived from the Father at all, but from the world itself” (Philips).
Number
nine in the way Satan attacks believers is a way that encompasses all the
others, Satan attacks believers by leading them to disobey God’s Word. We know as believers that God wants us to act
faithfully to Him, and so Satan desires us to act unfaithfully towards
God. We know as believers we are to
speak the truth, and we also know that Satan is the father of lies and desires
us to lie and not speak the truth. God
desires that we live by faith, and so Satan desires us to live by sight. Where we find a command or standard in
Scripture that we are suppose to, as believers follow, Satan desires us not to
follow it.
John
MacArthur concludes his intro by writing the following: “Yet, although we should be aware of these
devices of Satan, our defense against them is not simply our knowledge of them
but rather God’s provision to meet them. ‘Therefore, take up the full armor of
God, ‘Paul says, ‘that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having
done everything, to stand firm’ (Eph. 6:13).
Partial armor is not enough.
Jesus added, ‘What king, when he sets out to meet another king in
battle, will not first sit down and take counsel whether he is strong enough with
ten thousand?’ (Luke 14:31). We cannot know
exactly when, where, or how the enemy will attack. We therefore need to have on all of God’s
armor all the time. When the believer
has on God’s full armor, it is not necessary to fully know or specifically
understand the devil’s schemes. In fact,
many times the Christian soldier will not even be aware of a danger from which
God’s armor is at that moment protecting him.
“In
Ephesians 6:14-17 Paul tells us of the seven pieces of armor with which God
supplies His children to withstand the onslaughts of Satan and his hosts.
“As
indicated by ‘having’…(representing the Greek aorist tense), the first three
pieces of armor are permanent, and the believe is never to be without them.”
Today’s quotation from “Love in Action”
comes from Romans 1:8-9:
Let me say first of all that wherever I
go I hear you being talked about!
For your faith in God is becoming known
around the world. How
I thank God through Jesus Christ for
this good report
and for each one of you. God knows how often
I pray for you. Day and night I bring you
and your needs in prayer to the One
I serve with all of my might.
Romans
1:8-9 TLB
10/12/2019 9:04 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment