Along with God’s characteristics we also have our weapons of warfare that God gave us the day we became born again. Paul the Apostle states in 11Cor.10:3-4 states “Even though we walk in fleshly bodies, we are not to carry on our warfare according to the flesh and use mere human reasoning. For the weapons of our warfare are not (physical reasoning of flesh and blood,) but they are mighty through God for the overthrowing and destruction of strongholds.”

When scripture uses terms like through or before it means that, we have to put away our own human reasoning and begin to think with the mind of Christ that we received the day we made Jesus our Savor and follow the Holy Spirit’s advice only. No one wants to admit that there could be strongholds in one’s life however, we were born into a flesh and blood body and David the King in Psalms says “all men are beasts with out the Holy Spirit’s leadings.” Our born again experience is something that we have to maintain through discipline, tenacity and passion with a total leaning of our entire personality on Jesus Christ. If we are going to reach excellence, we must be healed of our cripple ness and the strongholds in our lives by studying and meditating on the scripture to know that, we are approved by God to do the work of the ministry of Jesus on the earth. I am talking to all of us not just the five fold ministry in the public eye.

The five fold ministry is supposed to equip the body of Christ to do the real work of the ministry in the market places of their personal lives. The day of the people sitting in the pews Sunday after Sunday with their mouths open like chicks being fed by the mother in the nest must come to an end. I believe God is saying the same thing He said to Pharaoh back in the Old Testament when He told him, “to let His people go on and mature to the Promised Land.”

In Ephesians 6:10-18 it talks about what our weapons are that God has given us to overcome evil. Paul the Apostle says “be strong in the Lord and draw your strength from Him as your having fellowship with Him. Allow Him to put His armor on you so you can be a heavily armed soldier and then, you can successfully stand up against the strategies and deceptions of the Devil. We are not fighting against people in our own human understanding of things, but against a tyrant, master spirits and world rulers of this present dark and wicked age who live in this heavenly (supernatural) atmosphere.

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.

The first weapon stated here is the weapon of truth. Scripture tells us that the truth will set us 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 judgment of things is what 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 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. This can only happen when it is being inspired by the Holy Spirit. It’s only as we have our daily fellowship with the Holy Spirit, recognize His voice, and say what He tells us to say that, we can use this weapon.

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.

As long as we have people teaching in pulpits childish understandings of their concepts of the love of God that says, He loves us when we do this and He forsakes us when we do that.

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.

In turn, that’s why there are so many Christians that have no commitment and a stick to it, 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. 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 shield in the Greek is thureos: meaning, a shield shaped like a door that can be opened and closed. The word faith is pistis: meaning, a consistency of confession, being persuaded and the truthfulness of God. 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 learn how to 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.

In Rev. 3:20, Jesus tells us that, “He 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 in your life or have a serious brain deficiency to not want to be close to Him and be in His company at all times. I can write unending volumes on the definition of faith because of the fact that, Jesus Himself is our faith and everything thing He is, thinks and feels. 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 helmet is perizonnumi: meaning, to prepare one self for action and to tighten a belt around your mind. The word salvation is soterian: meaning, our defender, safety, rescuer and savior Jesus the Christ. We see here that there has to be created in us a security and total persuasion by God in our gut 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. We said earlier that the battle we are fighting is in our minds.

Romans 12:1-2 states that, “we are to present all our mental reasoning and will power and dedicate our lives to be earnestly and totally devoted to God’s causes. When we do this, it makes God rejoice over our enthusiasm. Us having this attitude makes sense because of what He has done for us. We are not to conform to these wordily ways of outward shallow customs. Therefore, we are to be inwardly changed by the entire renewing of our mind and in turn by this happening in us, we will know what God’s perfect and acceptable will is for our lives.”

The next weapon is the sword of the Spirit, which is the authority of God. The word sword is machomai: meaning a knife, to fight or the administration of justice. The word 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.  Thery are to be 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 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 us or others. 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 can’t 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 wicked ways in us that, we don’t know about.

We now come to the last weapon that is talked about in this scripture. 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 more than anything has changed.

The word 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. The scripture that we have been using says that we are in warfare against spiritual wickedness and a force in the supernatural atmosphere. 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. 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 Him to live big in us.