Our sermon this week followed on from the previous week. It’s one thing to know what we should do, but the question remains, how do we go about it? In the passage of Scripture (Ephesians 6:14-18)  that this talk was based on, we are given a blow by blow account of the WHOLE armour and weapons at our disposal and how to use them. 

    Firstly, there is the belt of truth, and we see this belt is missing in so many of our leaders today….we simply can’t take any notice of what they say! Yes, they may be sincere and think they mean what they say, but it could be a different story to putting it into practice…they simply didn’t know enough about the situation of the things they were promising! We must always make sure before we make a promise that we have gone into it thoroughly first, and KNOW what we are talking about!

    The truth of any matter is the foundation that our words are built on, and without that our statements and promises are valueless!

   Next we must be wearing the boots of something solid….in this case, the Gospel of Peace. We must KNOW that what we base our statements on is solid! Boots are no good if they don’t fit properly, and our feet slide around in them….they let us down in the end and we have to take them off with having blisters and sore feet.

   Then we must pick up and use the shield of faith. This is the basis of all that we believe in…without faith we don’t have stability, and waver from side to side. We are told that we cannot please our General (God) without having this shield with us (Hebrews 11:6)….we have to know the One we believe in, and we cannot believe in Him without having faith that He exists. The shield of faith also helps us to fight off the fiery darts of unbelief and doubt that our enemy shoots at us….it gives us the confidence to face him and stand firm. We are told by James to resist the devil and he will flee from us (James 4:7)

    We are to be wearing the helmet of salvation to protect our head…..our thoughts and our mind….what a person thinks about is what they do and how they act. Not only that but we are to take up the sword of the Spirit with us to fight with. We might ask how we can do  that…. we are told that the Bible, is not only God’s Word to us, but is also the Sword of the Spirit! We need to know it thoroughly to use it effectively.

    We are fully provided for, and now it is up to us to use it all. The overall covering is that of prayer, both for ourselves and also for those we know. Just as there is full communication in a family, so there must be for us in the family of God…communication with Him as our Father and supplication for strength for each other, especially in the troubling times we find ourselves in these days.

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