Our Spiritual Armor
“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:1-12
We may think we have some kind of power and influence, but on our own we are just a bunch of wimps. All of our strength comes from the Lord. Even though we are weak in ourselves, our weakness is the perfect starting place for God to work and mold and shape us into the mighty soldiers of Christ’s army. A soldier doesn’t go out to fight the battle without donning his protective gear and neither should we go out to stand for Christ and His word without putting on the whole armor of God. We face not a bodily enemy, but one that is intangible: spiritual wickedness. We may not see this enemy in the flesh, but we do see the effects of his attacks.
It is interesting to note that the scripture points out that spiritual wickedness many times comes from those in “high places”, places of leadership, rule, and political clout. We normally might think of an enemy as someone who is “down and out” looking to make a fast buck either through criminal means, cheating, or fraud. Of course, that does happen quite often. But we must be on guard against those who we could call the “up and out”, folks who are in authority, but are more concerned about their own self-interest or their agenda rather than doing what’s right for those under their authority. I think one of the worst things that a leader can do is to take a crisis and use it for his or her own benefit or the benefit of whatever group to which he or she supports.
Spiritual wickedness is doing or saying anything which goes against the standards by which God has ordained in His word. There has been a lot of talk about how some of our political leaders are shredding the Constitution. The thing is, they first attempted to shred God’s word thinking that they won’t be held accountable by Him, and that made disavowing the Constitution just another step in leading our nation down the path of a country whose god is the government. While we can recognize the faces of those who would like to destroy freedom for our people, we can’t always recognize their agenda. Some folks can, but when they attempt to identify some of the danger zones, they are accused of being a conspiracy nut. That is the tactic that unscrupulous people use to cover up their real agenda. Make no mistake. Satan is alive and well, for now, and is working as hard as he can through various people, processes, and politics.
To stand against an intangible enemy, our armor is not that of metal, but that of truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God. Along with these, prayer and perseverance make the armor fit perfectly. Assuming that we are not “sheltering in place”, we would not leave the house each day without being appropriately dressed, and neither should we take one step outside without being dressed in our spiritual armor.