Put On the Armor of God

Good teachers tell Christians that we are in spiritual warfare, whether we know it or not. Our main enemies are unseen. Before we came to Christ, we were prisoners of Satan. Now we are defectors and he wants to neutralize us. Christians belong to Jesus, and God has blessed us with the spiritual things we need (Eph. 1:3).

Although we belong to Christ, we still have to fight spiritual battles. I am not talking about demons coming into your home (unless you are inviting them by messing with occult things), but even small daily concerns as well as larger battles. We have been given armor and weapons.

Roman soldiers defensive group, Flickr / rikdom (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Roman soldiers were a disciplined, ruthless, efficient fighting force. If I got word they were going to attack my place, I'd light a shuck out of there, you betcha! The apostle Paul was being guarded by these guys (who also protected him very handily in Acts 23:12-25). Imagine him writing to the Ephesians and contemplating a nearby soldier. He said Christians need to put on the armor of God, and likened it to some of the equipment Roman soldiers were using. That is what we have.

Today, even many Christians are practical materialists in that we think of things mainly in terms of earthly causes and events. But the Bible teaches us that the spiritual world is real and affects our daily lives. Just as we need to be appropriately outfitted to deal with the physical weather and for whatever work we are doing, Paul teaches us that we need to put on spiritual armor to be prepared for inevitable spiritual conflict.

I'd be much obliged if you would read all of it over at "The Armor of God." Lyrics for "Defector" are here.