ARMOR AND WARFARE 1: CHOOSE TO STAND

 EPHESIANS 5: ¹⁰ Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. ¹¹ Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 


The first step we have to take in spiritual warfare is to make the choice to STAND. We gave to come to the place where we are sick and tired of being run over by the enemy of our soul. The problem with many of us is that we are interested in getting relief but not overcoming the battle. People will pray for us and even sometimes battle for us but that is never enough. One of the greatest gifts that God has given us is sovereign rule over our soul. In other words, God lets us make every choice for ourselves. We have to choose to repent, choose to receive Christ, choose to follow His word, and ultimately CHOOSE TO FIGHT OUR BATTLE WITH GOD'S HELP. He will not MAKE you stand. He has a plan for us but we have to make a choice to live and walk in that plan.


Satan not only wants to make us a victim of his plan. John 10:10 tells us that the devil's plan is to steal, kill, and destroy. When we are hit by the enemy, we become a victim but we have at our disposal the spiritual resources to be healed and overcome. The problem is that Christians are many times not trained to fight the battle and the vast spiritual resources given to us go untapped. This delights Satan because he isn't satisfied with victimizing us only once. He wants to keep on victimizing us for the rest of our lives if we will allow it. I have met and ministered to hundreds of people who have lived under the shadow of an incident or circumstance orchestrated by the devil. This should not be so. We have the power of Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit within us to be not just overcomers but VICTORIOUS in Christ.


To begin the process of being victorious, we have to decide that enough is enough. We have to come to the end of our own efforts and appropriate the tools God has blessed us with to put the whoop on the devil and become a testimony of the power of God. The armor of God is real and each piece of armor represents walking in an awareness of our relationship to the Lord. To stand up to the enemy requires us to go on the offensive against the lying, cheating, demonic forces that want to keep us bound up and suffering. Making this choice puts us in a position to defeat the devil and begin to live the second half of John 10:10 - ABUNDANT LIFE.


The next few days we will look at each piece of armor and how it applies to our defeat of the enemy. If the choice is our choice the we should make it and CHOOSE LIFE....just sayin'...