In Matt. 6:33 Jesus tells us, "To seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness
and all the other things we need will be added." First of all; since a born again believer has the Holy Ghost living
in their being; there is no way of Him being cast out of God's kingdom by their disobedience of missing God's decrees
of life as it has been preached in far to many born again and un-born again assemblies. (This type of teaching is death to
God's children and totally hinders their faith walk in God) As a matter of fact; if only one assembly was preaching that
we could lose the Holy Ghost once he came into our heart; it would be one to many. However; we can suppress His Spirit and
also grieve Him because of the foolish childish things we do that brings us pain and us not experiencing God's peace and
joy that comes with our righteous spiritual walk with Christ. With out the Holy Ghost
who is the Creator of all life; there is no life in God and Christianity is a myth that does not exist. If we have the tenacity
to be warrior like; we must pursue a Christ centered life and the only way to attain this goal is to be able to hear the Holy
Ghost's voice in our inner man; which is what identifies for us the battle field of our arena of life. If God's righteousness
is not being preached in the assembly that you belong to; run for your life and find a church where Jesus Christ is being
lifted up and signs and wonders are happening in your midst.**
When our righteousness
is being taught with clarity; our first sign and wonder takes place in the heart of man; where the issues of life are formed
and nurtured. What happens; we begin to know the difference between living a life of obligation verses the free will choice
to love or not love and; in what ever we choose; we are always loved and accepted by God the Father. Our flesh is an undisciplined
child and can only think as a need orientated self centered person. This is a child only concentrating on a survivor mode
existence. This is a person needing love and security and not having a clue yet of what is going around and about them. Our
true fight of faith is us learning how to allow God to love us so we can start loving ourselves and stop doing harm to ourselves
and each other.
When Christ is not the center focus of our lives; mankind
looks for love in all the wrong places and this can become a strong addiction because of us being gullible in the evaluating
of our life choices. We begin to look for gratification and comfort in people and things and believe that; this will make
us secure and complete. Our flesh or unregenerate self has a will of its own and has a cunning, deceitful, or treacherous
quality that must be inspected by the Holy Ghost continually so that; we do not get caught up in unholy alliances or miss
God's time tables of life.
Galatians 5:6 tells us. "Faith is only activated,
energized and expressed and works through love." When we do not have God's agape love as the foundation motivating
our faith; we have no power to fight the good fight of faith. Agape love puts other people's needs, interests, or wishes
before our own. It gives us a security in ourselves of how to go to God to get the provisions we need to fill our needs and
wants at any given time. In turn, this equips us to go to battle as a person who knows how to stand in the gap and fulfill
God's purposes in the life of us all; by His anointed love at work in us. By trusting in God's provision; we surrender
ourselves to love others because; we are learning how to love ourselves.
We must
totally understand what Paul meant when he said in 1 Cor 13:1. "If I speak in the tongues of men and even angels, but
have not love (that reasoning, intentional, spiritual devotion such as is inspired by God's love for and in us), we are
a noisy gong or a clanging symbol." Our natural un-redeemed self does an excellent job in faking love, and a person can
be mesmerized into being sold a bill of goods and become imprisoned; by living a life of obligated service; which in turn,
robs them of the independent freedom of making a choice whether they want to submit to God the Father's provision and
protection; or try to find success by their own plan. This type of relationship not only happens between God and our self
but it will then be passed down to our relationship with others.
In Ephesians
6 it describes what our armor and weapons are that God has given us to fight the good fight of faith. Paul states. "Therefore,
by having God's armor on we will be able to stand firmly in place and be able to handle all crises. First tighten the
belt of truth around your loins and having on the breastplate of righteousness, you will be able to make correct judgments
that will keep you in right standing with God. You will be able to stand on your feet so you can face the enemy and be ready
because, you have a peace in you put there by God. Lift up over all the shield of faith, which will enable you to put out
all the flaming missiles of the wicked one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit that is the authority
of the Word of God. In addition, be praying at all times on every occasion and in every season in the Spirit in all types
of prayer. To the final end, keep alert and watch with a strong purpose and holding fast interceding in behalf of all the
saints or all of God's consecrated people."
The first weapon stated
here is the weapon of truth. The truth will set a person free from any thing contrary to God's will. When we live in denial
and in darkness by lying to ourselves about the true condition of our hearts, we cannot participate in kingdom living and
our lives are wasted on trivial pursuits that have no consequences in eternal matters. Only God's opinion of things makes
up truth. If you're not listening to His truths and acting on it, life has no real meaning. This scripture says to tighten
the belt of truth around our loins. The word for loin in the Greek is osphus: Meaning, hip or procreative power. God is the
author of procreative power; its how He brought all of exists into being. We need to know God's truths from His word and
use it as Jesus did against the Devil when He was tempted. Since the Devil is a liar and the father of liars, he can't
stand the truth and he shakes when we use it, however, only when it is being inspired by the Holy Spirit.
The next weapon stated is the breastplate of righteousness. This word breastplate in the Greek is
thorax: meaning an upper chest protector or a corset. This represents a heart protector where the issues of life take place
in our being. Its how we get our assurance and deep rooted connection between God as our Father and us knowing that no matter
what happens in our lives nothing can ever separate us from His love and holding power. I never cease to say this over and
over that; we need to know without a shadow of a doubt that, when we made Jesus our savior, we were adopted into God's
family permanently.
Righteousness means that, when God the Father looks at us
He sees Jesus His perfect son.
There must be an end to these childish teachings
of the concept that says God loves us when we do this and He forsakes us when we do that.
These
conditional love themes are the most destructive and blasphemous teachings ever perpetrated by the Devil through men of ignorance
in explaining God are holding power.
Eternal security has to cease from being
interpreted as a doctrine of Devils or a license to sin, as it is being interpreted in many circles. We are eternally secure
but, we can through faulty teaching and bad choices be living out of fellowship with God and grieving the Holy Spirit because,
we stop Him from comforting and strengthening us in our daily warfare.
There is a security, which builds integrity within us as we become deep seated in our understanding
of our permanent relationship with God. If we do not have this security, the Devil makes us believe through his subtle persuasion
that the God we serve is an indecisive person of mere opinion and His mood changes with circumstances.
Therefore, that is why there are so many Christians that have no commitment and a stick to it attitude
no matter what happens. When the warfare gets to hot they fold and run away and deny their savior as Peter the Apostle did
in his childish years of growing up. Without integrity in ones life you have no example to represent the Love of Jesus Christ
to the world. The word of God tells us that our statements in life should be either yes or no. The Holy Spirit doesn't
compromise. He tells it like it is and we can do nothing less. Its time to put our childish thinking away and! Grow Up!
The next weapon is the shield of faith. The word for shield in the Greek is thureos: meaning, a shield
shaped like a door that can be opened and closed. The word for faith is pistis: meaning, a consistency of confessing God‘s
truth because we have been persuaded that God is not like a man who lies. As God showed me this concept it made me realize,
what a commitment and trust God has for His children to give them a powerful weapon like this. As we use it, we are able to
have the ability to control our thought life by being able to close and open this door type shield when we need to. To me
it was a very practical application that was simple to understand. When the Devil shows up to dump his garbage in our minds
we keep it closed.
Rev. 3:20 tells us that, "Jesus stands at the door of
our hearts and knocks and if we respond to Him and open ourselves up to Him when He shows up, He will come in, discuss with
us His plans, and train us in the warfare that we are all going through. In turn, we will be over comers and will be able
to sit beside Him as a sovereign King and Priest having great power to rule and reign with Him." You have to really be
living in extreme darkness or have a serious brain deficiency to not want to be close to Him and be in His company at all
times. Unending volumes can be written on faith because; Christ Jesus Himself is our faith. Every thing He thinks, feels,
and His very being and intense passions rubs off on us as we hang out with Him. To be like Him that has to be our first desire.
The next weapon is the helmet of salvation. The word for helmet is perizonnumi:
meaning, to prepare one self for action and to tighten a belt around our mind. The word for salvation is soterian: meaning,
our defender, rescuer and savior Jesus the Christ. There has to be created in us a security and total persuasion by God in
our inner most feelings that, there is no way we can lose this war no matter what ever the adversity. This helmet or attitude
of confidence cannot be tightened around our minds unless we are totally sold out with a concentrated effort in us seeking
after the Lord and His counsel because the battle we are fighting is in our minds.
The
next weapon is the sword of the Spirit, which is the authority of God. The word for sword is machomai: meaning a knife, to
fight or the administration of justice. The word for Spirit is pneuma: meaning, superhuman or the Divine God, Christ's
Spirit the Holy Spirit. I don't know how God can make the interpretation of this any clearer. This gives us the authority
as God's children to rise up in the authority of the Holy Spirit to fight these demonic forces in this present age. This
is what God's kids are supposed to be doing, going about their Heavenly Fathers business administering His justice in
the lives of people on this planet. We are not to do this in our own fleshly self-righteous attitudes by sitting in judgment
and portraying God as some kind of control freak wanting to inflict punishment and pain.
This
type of warfare has to be administered through us by the author and lover of our souls who became a servant and ultimately
died on a cross for our sin and the sin's of the whole world. We need to get a hold of what it means to die to self by
the Holy Spirit's leadings and unless we do that, we have the capability of becoming the Devil's disciple coming in
the name of the Lord and ministering self-righteous concepts that, we have been reaping on ourselves for years.
This way of ministry has no power to deliver others or ourselves. Scripture tells us that; "the
Devil disguises himself as an angel of light." It says only Jesus is the true Light of the world. We cannot expose the
darkness in others or us by our false and fleshly interpretations of God's ways. It's time for us to not be afraid
and let the Holy Spirit check us out and see if there are any harm full ways in us that, we don't know about.
We now come to the last weapon that is talked about in this chapter. The weapon of prayer, (Intimate
conversations with God) this is what it's all about. Prayer is our endless conversation with God now and forever. It's
His life and our life becoming one life. Therefore, we see that there is no end to this weapon. It's the weapon that makes
all the other weapons work. Moreover, to me this is our greatest weapon. It is also the weapon that we need to discipline
this fleshly body to lay down and die. It's where we receive our stability, and sound minded thinking. Wisdom in the day
and night hours of our life, His hugs, rebukes and chastisements, that are needed for our safety and guidance. It's the
way we search for His presence, play, and joke and carefully listen for Him to reveal new wisdom's of His ways as we learn
to be comfortable with His friendship. I have found that over the years my prayer life has changed more than anything else.
It has become more of a natural all hours of the day and night conversation that
continually goes on at all times. It's like living with another person that you're learning to get comfortable with
and trust.
The word for prayer is proseuchomai: meaning, to be in a humble state
before God in worship, adoration and requesting. The prefix of this word is pros: meaning, on all occasions and together with
at all times. We stated that we are in a war with spirits in lofty places of the air. Let's realize that this is an outward
force trying to impregnate us with ideas, emotions and principles to do its bidding. It is a spirit of anti-christ. Now that
we're God's children and the Holy Spirit lives within us; let's learn to trust Him to keep the door of the house
of our temporary stay on this planet locked, when the Devil shows up to bombard our thought life with things that have no
eternal value. We will never know how to keep our armor on without our Commander and Chief inspecting us to see if we are
equipped to go into battle and wrestle for the kingdom of God that lives with in us. Walking with the Lord doesn't have
to be a chore in our lives. What we have to do is lay down our lives and allow the Holy Ghost to live big in us.
