How to put on the full armour of God. – Part 1 of a 3 part series.

What is this all about? Well we read in Ephesians that we are all in a spiritual battle, every one of us. What does this battle look like in practice? This is a huge area to cover in this article but I will try to summarise some ways you can tell. If you overwhelmed by fears or anxieties or there has been a relationship breakdown or things going wrong for no good reason. Its most likely a spiritual attack. They are all aimed at demoralising us, but we don’t see the evil forces that were behind it, because if we did we would know who the real enemy is and how to fight it.

Now it goes without too much deliberation that to fight a spiritual enemy we need suitable spiritual weapons and suitable spiritual armour and this is where in Ephesians 6, Paul draws our attention to a Roman soldiers armour and likens each part to a spiritual equivalent. However let us remember two things before we go forward and look at what they are spiritually. Firstly we must not consider the armour of God as something we put on and take off. No its something we put on and never take off! yes we put it on more and more as we develop in our faith and understanding of how the Christian life is lived but we never take it off. The second point is that we do all this and fight the good fight with the power and strength that God supplies us through the Holy Spirit we received at spiritual birth. See my article on First Steps with God for more about that. This is not something we put on or fight with our own strength or wisdom or a crucifix in our hand.

Lets start with the helmet of salvation. What is that and how do we put it on? Well the first thing we must note is that the helmet comes about through our salvation – the state of being saved or becoming a Christian. Its only as effective as the assurance it gives us. This is why its usually one of the first areas to be attacked and if that attack is successful the Christian will lack assurance of salvation. That means they can’t say for sure they are going to heaven when they die. Its particularly sad as that will make them less effective in all the other areas of the Christian life including sharing their faith. So to put on the helmet of salvation we must firstly make sure we are standing on the promises of God to us and are in no way depending on our efforts or “good works” to be heavenward bound.

One of the clever attacks in this area would be for us to rely heavily on feelings rather than fact and faith. Feelings varying with the quality of sleep, quality of food or happenings around us. You want a good helmet? then get acquainted with the promises of God for us who believe. A good question to ask ourselves is this: If we were to die tonight and God was to ask us why He should let us into heaven, what would our response be? Think about that for a moment. What would your response be? I have given money to the poor or I’m a good person, or how about I have gone to Church most of my life. All good things dear fellow but none of them of themselves make an entry into heaven possible. There is only one right answer and that is to acknowledge the only reason God would allow us into heaven is that we are trusting in His son Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection for the forgiveness of our sins and that alone.

Yes the new birth is felt and should be felt powerfully for we become changed people ( a new creation even) we receive the Holy Spirit and now know through our sensitised consciences what is right and wrong. We repent of former ways and walk with Jesus in newness of life. Look I am not saying we will never have our helmet attacked after that. The opportunist that the devil is will try again at opportune times and we must keep our helmet on as before with these promises and assurances and with the help of the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit which we will consider in part two.