The armor of God:

The armor of God is a subject that I have not really done a lot of research or thinking about before, but it is important to think about how one can defend themselves against the terrors of the world with Christian armor.  When a person is ready with the full armor of God, they are almost ready for anything that comes their way.  The armor of God description can be found in the Bible under Ephesians 6:10-18.  I absolutely love how well this is described in the Bible.  I love thinking about how we are called to be a part of God’s army.  We have a duty and a role given to use from the Lord, and that is why he wants us to be better equipped with the armor of God.  

First there is the belt of truth.  When I was a kid, I thought that this was more focused on that a person should be telling the truth as opposed to lies.  While I do think that is important to be a person who tells the truth is important, I know that this verse is also mainly talking about how one should know God’s truth, and that he is the one God who is the only way to eternal life.  Just like your belt is important in your outfit to hold everything together, the belt of truth will help keep everything together for you in regards to centering you back to Christ and reminding you of your overall purpose.  A similar body armor piece in this passage to the belt of truth is the helmet of salvation.  The helmet of salvation protects the head of your body with the knowledge of God’s love and grace in your life.  

The next piece is putting on the breastplate of righteousness.  When I talked about the Beatitudes in my blog posts, I talked about how being righteous is all about being morally upright or just.  Those who care about righteousness care about following the law, God’s just law and rules.  However, I think that we can often think about living with righteousness, and care about looking like we follow the rules as we go through the motions. However, making this part of the armor in the breastplate means that it is close to the heart.  This means that it should matter more that one is following the laws in their heart.  When one is following the rules and the expectations in their heart, that means that they actually have a desire to follow the law because that then creates a closer relationship with the Lord, not just because it makes them look more holy or righteous.  

For the feet, they are armed with a readiness that comes from peace.  The importance here is the readiness, a readiness to spread God’s peace.  There is a readiness that is given to believers to spread the Gospel to everyone in the world.  The feet need to have that readiness and that desire to tell everyone all over the world about the Gospel.  It can be very easy to look at our Christian journey as only a personal one.  Even through looking at the rest of the descriptions over the armor of God, most of it is about protecting our personal bodies.  We need to make sure that we first have the truth, and are acting righteous.  However, the Christian walk is not one that should be made alone.  There are many people in the world who do not yet know about Jesus and the love that he has for his people.  This is the second part of the Chrsitian walk is to tell others about the great love God has for his people and his whole creation.  

The next one is to take up the shield of faith.  A shield’s goal, like many of the pieces of armor, is to protect those from attacks of another person.  It is something that is held by the person and as the verse describes, “with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”  The shield is actively protecting the attacks and the problems that are coming their way.  This is very similar to what faith is like in real life.  It is more of an active protection role.  Faith is not always easy to keep alive.  It is not always easy to believe in the items and the things of the world that one can’t see, but that is exactly what is expected for those who are Christian and have faith in general.  

The last piece is the sword of the Spirit.  This is obviously the Holy Spirit and as the Bible points out, the Word of God.  This is another active piece of armor.  The Holy Spirit should actively fight against the evils of this world.  With the background knowledge and love of God, the sword of the spirit, similar to the feet of readiness, is a part of the armor of God to spread God’s love. As we were just looking at the shield of faith and how faith can get really exhausting, the sword of the word should be helpful with that. The sword of spirit or the word serves as a reminder that when one is struggling with their faith, they should look to God’s word as a continuous comfort.  

In this world, there is often a lot of talk of self-care and protecting ourselves.  The reason that this is talked about so much right now is because there are so many evil things in the world that a Christian needs protection from.  I believe that this armor of God is the perfect way to do this.  Remembering to honor God with how we act as well as protecting ourselves is the best self-care that we can possibly have.  This will then help us with the rest of our Christian journey, including the Christian journey of telling others about the Lord.