“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” ( Ephesians 6:10-11 )
We often make one of two mistakes about the devil: We either too little of him or too much of him. We need to avoid those extremes. In the book of Ephesians, Paul writes beautifully about our new life in Christ and the way we work together as the body of Christ, and he gives us clear directions about how we relate to God, to our family members, to other believers, and to those who don’t know Christ. Satan uses several different ploys to block our walks with God, he uses the temptation of sex, money, power, pleasure, and possessions, like a fishing lure to get us to chase something that looks good but is very harmful to us. Satan tries to confuse us with conflicting teaching about God and His will so that we stop moving forward and drift in uncertainty to make us doubt God’s love and forgiveness.
God has given us powerful armor to protect us and the sword of the Spirit, the Scriptures, to enable us to fight back. “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PLACE; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.“ ( Ephesians 6:13-17 )
We need to prepare ourselves for the fight with truth, grace, and faith so that in the heat of battle, we have the resources we need to fight effectively.
