Shield of Faith

The Shield of Faith! It is a powerful defender!!! The shield defends you from any attacks from arrows in the sky or the swords and spears from below. No matter what happens in the heat of battle, you will fall without your shield to protect you.

Those arrows, swords, and spears are not real, physical attacks towards you. They are attacks of doubt, worry, fear, and sin. Their main purpose is to weaken your will to fight and fall to evil. After all, we are not fighting against flesh and blood, but against the spiritual darkness of the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)

Our Shield will allow us to protect ourselves from these arrows of doubt or the swords of fear, but we have to know what we're dealing with before we can protect ourselves. How do you expect to use your shield when you can't see what you're using it for? We have to know what we're going against so we can raise our shield and brace ourselves for the attack.

That's why many Christians fall. They don't know what they're going against in the battle, and they get attacked from the side unexpectedly. They get a fatal blow to the side, and they fall. Thank goodness God's grace saves us from the deathly grasp of death, and He lifts us up and we keep going. This is all spiritually speaking, but you must realize that our lives are always a constant battle to stay clean and holy for the Lord. Always expect an attack from satan. He will never rest.

Also realize that in order to properly use your "Shield of Faith" you must have what? Faith!!!! Without faith, you have no shield and you will be falling left and right. Keep your faith strong so you can boldly stand with your shield held high and ready to defend yourself.

I want to finish with this. Keep your faith strong, and stay on guard for anything that might want to destroy your spirit. Your shield of faith is valuable, so keep it with you at all times.

I pray that you have a blessed week, and that you will proudly keep your faith strong. Amen!

Shoes of Peace

Sorry for the delay in this next piece of armor. I've been quite busy, and I finally found some time to write today, so thank goodness.

The Shoes of Peace protect your feet from hurting when you walk on gravel or anything else that gets in your way. You know how bad your feet hurt when you walk outside and you step on a sharp rock. That rock represents the pain you will endure during your walk with God. The sharp rock will still hurt with your shoes on, but it will not hurt as bad.

We will always get hurt during our walk with God, but we have to keep our shoes on to protect our feet from the painful stab from the devil.

Peace.......... That's what the shoes are made of. We should be leaving peace everywhere we go. Let me put it in this analogy.

When you walk on the beach near the water where the sand is wet, you look back and see your footprints in the sand, right? When we walk with our Shoes of Peace, we should be leaving our "footprints" of peace all over the places we walk through.

Psalms 23:6 says ," Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever."

Let's start bringing peace to the places we go to with our Shoes of Peace.

You have a blessed week and wear the Shoes of Peace during your walk with God. Amen

Belt of Truth

You may have all of the armor of God, but how do you plan on keeping it all together without the Belt of Truth? Without the Belt of Truth, we have nothing to hold up our armor.

You've seen those teenaged boys walking around with their pants just below their butt, right? Everytime I see that, I just want to go over there and pull their pants down. Then I can run away laughing, because they can't catch me. You know why? Because their pants are down.

Put us in the boy's shoes. How do we think we can fight if our pants are on the floor? We'll be tripping over ourselves, while satan laughs at us, because he pulled our pants down with his lies. Satan's goal is to bring us down. His main weapon is deceitfulness. Of course he's going to lie to us. Then we'll be to worried about what he said, and eventually trip over ourselves, instead of getting a " Belt of Truth" to keep our pants up.

Truth is the base of the word. Without the Truth, our lives will fall apart. Anytime someone hits us, we'll break into pieces. We must know what the truth is, so we can stand up for what we believe in.

John 17:17 says, "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth."

Our words of truth will help other people find the right way, and be lead to the Lord.

The truth will also guide us.

John 16:13 " But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come"

For us to put on the Belt of Truth, we must read the Word, and speak it aloud, so it becomes real in our hearts. Stand on the Rock of Truth, which is the Word. Then you can keep your clothes on. Ha ha

Have a blessed week, and wear the Belt of Truth. Amen

Breastplate of Righteousness

The Breastplate is the next piece of armor I will talk about. It allows us to walk boldly in the battlefield to fight. Having the Breastplate protects the main part of our body. Our torso consists of the muscles, vital organs, as well as the heart. Losing any of these parts would be life threatening.

I looked up the word for righteousness, and the definition was this : To be without sin; guiltless.

I thought about that, and after some research, I realized that there were two different types of righteousness. The first type was given to us from Jesus, and the second type is Jesus working in and with us.

Romans 4:6-7 says ," Just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works: Blessed [are those] whose lawless deeds are forgiven, And whose sins are covered."

The Bible says that God gave us righteousness, even though we didn't do anything to deserve it. How cool is that?

The next kind of righteousness is the process of God working through us.

Jeremiah 31:33-34 says ,"But this [is] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. "No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."

God put His law into our minds and wrote it in our hearts. He gave part of Himself to us, so we could call upon His name and He would willingly come into our life and change us.

Before this lesson ends, I want to give you something to scratch your heads while you go about your day. You understand that the Breastplate is for the front part of the body, right? The purpose of the Breastplate was not to protect your back, but for the front.

What I'm trying to say here is that we are not supposed to turn our exposed "back" to the enemy, for he will attack our unarmored area. We are called to keep ourselves facing the enemy. Only if we run, will we be in true danger.

To put on the Breastplate of Righteousness, we must keep ourselves from sin at all costs. If we fall, though, we don't walk away. Instead we ask for forgiveness and keep fighting.

Try to find a time in your day to read Romans 8:1-11, and you will have a better understanding about God's righteousness.

Have a blessed week, and put on the Breastplate of Righteousness. Amen.

Helmet Of Salvation

I will first start this series with the Helmet of Salvation. When you ask God to live in your heart, you automatically receive this gift. The Helmet protects any attacks and blows that are directed toward your head.

You don't need much convincing to know how important it is to keep your head protected. You can survive a broken arm or a leg, but a broken head can lead to devastating results. The Helmet is a very important piece of armor for you to carry at all times.

1 Thessalonians 5:8 tells us that the helmet is the " Hope of Salvation".

Interesting, isn't it? Last Sunday, my pastor gave us a very real analogy. He said that a man can survive 40 days without food, 3 days without water, 8 minutes without air, but not even a second without Hope.

That passage right there really puts a perspective on our life. Here's the question, though. What do we put our hope in?

Titus 1:2-3 says, " A faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, "

The Bible says that we put our hope in eternal life. Knowing that we have eternal life in God gives us the strength and courage to move forward.

In order to put on this helmet and to strengthen it up, we must put our hope in the Lord. The more hope we put in the Lord, the stronger and more durable our helmet becomes. Therefore, give hope in the Lord and His promises for us in our lives.

Have a blessed week, and always wear your Helmet of Salvation. Amen.

Armor Of God

How many times do you get defeated in life when you're at school, work, or even at home? Do you think that it's just because you're down or not feeling good? Why do you think that is?

Satan is always out there looking for people to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). We, as Christians, become his primary target. He does not want us to live a blessed and happy life. His whole objective is to keep us down in the dumps mentally, physically, and spiritually.

So how do we keep ourselves protected from Satan and his gang?

The answer is.......(drumroll)........ Ephesians 6:11 " Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil."

Pretty simple, isn't it?

If you've seen any kind of medieval-type movies, you'll understand how important it is for those soldiers to have all of their armor on. If they don't wear a certain part, they take a very big risk into losing the battle. So if not putting on certain parts of armor in real life will hurt us, how much more if not putting on our spiritual armor destroys us from the inside?

Over the next few days I will be going over each piece of armor and giving great detail on what it does. I hope you enjoy reading these next few teachings, for this is an important subject.

Ephesians 6:12 " For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."

I pray that you will equip the full armor of God, and have a blessed week. Amen

Truth..........

Truth........ What is truth, exactly? Is it a few words that you say, and people believe you? Is it a proclamation of what really happened? What about something you read? Is it non-fiction books that you pick up from the library? What is really truth?

I'm sure most of you would say," It's the Bible", but what if there is more than that? What if there is something within the Bible that makes it become the Truth. Here's a verse that will back up what I'm saying.

John 8:32 says," You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

What do you see when you read this verse? Notice that it says ,"the truth will set you free" not ,"the truth will guide you to freedom". If " Truth" was just a group of words that you can read, then it wouldn't be able to do an actions such as "set" you to freedom; it would only be able to guide you to the right path.

Hebrews 4:12 says," For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow, as it judges the thoughts and purposes of the heart."

If the Bible is living and active, it must have something behind it that makes a book become a living thing. Now that we now that the Bible is alive, let's figure out how it is alive.

John 1:1 says ," In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

It says here that the Bible is God. (I know it's in past tense, but if the Bible was God, then the Bible is still God.) So we now know that the Bible is God, so that is what makes the Bible living and active to give us the Truth.

You're probably thinking ," You didn't even tell me what Truth is yet. So what is it?"


........This is the cool part...........


John 14:6 says this: Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Jesus said that he is the truth. Since he is the truth, what if the "Truth" isn't a thing or a couple of words. What if the Truth is too complicated to be said in a book. Maybe something that can't be confined into simple words.

.............What if the Truth could actually be alive?

Truth is so complicated that it isn't a book or a few words that will change your life. It's like a DNA. I can't write out a DNA for you. It's way too complicated. The Truth is a living Spirit. The Truth is an example. Jesus is the Truth. The Truth is Jesus.

God didn't make Love, Truth, or anything like that. He IS those things. God IS love, IS truth, and IS everything good. When He created the earth and us, His truth and love came upon His works, which is us as the people.

So when He created the Bible, the Bible became Him, and with that, all the Love and Truth you ever need will be in God's teachings, which is in that book, That Living Book Of God The Father!!!!!!

So to get closer to God, don't you think we should read the book that is actually a part of His soul? We should read the Word of God as often as we can, so we can get closer and closer to the one who lives in us. Then the Spirit of Truth and Love will overflow from us and spread (after all, it is alive) to all the people around us!!! How great is that!!!!!!!!

I pray that you have a blessed week, and that God will reveal Himself to you through His word. In Jesus' name, Amen.