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PROGRAM D6854
Don’t leave home today without your armor! Hopefully you realize that as a believer, you go out to face a daily battle. And sadly, many of us leave home without our spiritual armor.
In the sixth chapter of Ephesians Paul clearly tells us that if we put on God’s complete armor, we can successfully resist all the devil’s methods of attack. Have you ever learned how to put on the armor of God? Do you do it on a daily basis? Let’s look at each piece of this armor.
The first part is a protective belt called truth. Since Satan is a liar and the father of lies, his favorite tactic is to lie to us, and he’s very good at it. We must learn to detect his lies. Satan loves to get us to rationalize our way into untruth. We put our human reasoning to work, coupled with our sinful nature and the lies of our culture, and the first thing you know we’re justifying sinful behavior—such as affairs, greed, laziness, selfishness—with words like “But this is different.” Or “Everybody’s doing it.” Or “It’s just the way I am.” That’s how our enemy lies to us, so we need to put on the belt of truth each day.
The next piece of armor we should put on each day is the breastplate of righteousness. This is designed to protect an area of extreme vulnerability, our hearts—our feelings and emotions. One way Satan attacks our hearts is by telling us that we are total failures, and therefore we can never be worthy or do anything for God. We know from Revelation 12:10 that Satan is our accuser, and many times he brings up past sin and keeps us mired in their past, wounded in our hearts because we haven’t put on the armor to protect us against Satan’s accusations.
While it’s true that we are unworthy in ourselves, what Satan does not want us to discover is that we have the righteousness of Jesus Christ available to us to wear as our breastplate. That’s the secret: We wear the righteousness of Jesus Christ, not our own.
Try it. Put on the breastplate of righteousness before you leave home each day, and all through the day remember to talk back to your enemy when he tries to destroy you through accusations. You’ve been given protection for your heart against him; don’t leave home without it!