Ephesians 1:3 (ESV/emphasis added/jaj)...."Blessed Be The God And Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who Has Blessed us IN Christ With Every Spiritual Blessing in the heavenly places,"....
PJP2 PROLOG POST 160607 - Ephesians 6:10-20 (ESV/emphasis added)...."Finally, Be Strong In The Lord AND In The STRENGTH of His Might. PUT ON The Whole Armor of God, That you May Be Able To Stand against the schemes of the evil one. For we Do Not wrestle Against flesh and blood, BUT Against the rulers, Against the authorities, Against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, Against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore TAKE UP The Whole Armor of God, That you May Be Able To Withstand in the evil day, And Having DONE All, To Stand FIRM. Stand Therefore, Having Fastened On The BELT Of TRUTH, And Having PUT ON The BREASTPLATE Of Righteousness, And, As SHOES For Your Feet, Having PU ON The READINESS Given By The GOSPEL Of PEACE. In All Circumstances TAKE UP The SHIELD Of Faith, With Which you Can Extinguish ALL the flaming darts of the evil one; AND TAKE The HELMET Of Salvation, And The SWORD Of The Spirit, Which Is The WORD Of God, PRAYING At All Times In The Spirit, With ALL Prayer And Supplication. To That End, Keep Alert with ALL Perseverance, Making Supplication For ALL the saints, And Also for me, That WORDS May Be Given to me In Opening my mouth Boldly To PROCLAIM / PUBLISH The MYSTERY Of The GOSPEL, For Which I am An Ambassador In Chains, That I May Declare IT Boldly, As I Ought To Speak."....
Yesterday, 6June, being the Anniversary of the WW-2 D-Day/Normandy Invasion, ever Reminds me, as A Child of our King Jesus, that we are still a People, a Nation at War. Not just we, The United States, BUT we, His Family of The Faith. We are indeed in the midst of a Spiritual War that is ever ongoing all around, within and through us. As 'soldiers' in The Army of God, our Commander In Chief Has Supplied us With The Ultimate Protective Equipment - that is The Full or Whole Armor of God.
But, just like the battle-rattle I was supplied with when I deployed to Afghanistan, it does me no good IF I do NOT put the body-armor on.
Same with The Full/Whole Armor of God - Each Day, I would submit, we must, in essence, consciously 'PUT ON" God's Full/Whole Armor. Leaving any 'part' of His Armor off provides a vulnerability for 'the enemy' to exploit. Again, having worn the armor supplied to me, I know well how useless the armor ensemble would be if I were to have left the kevlar helmet off, or not have worn the torso protective vest.
Lastly, one piece of the Full/Whole Armor that's not specifically called a piece of the Armor BUT clearly plays a critical role, would be PRAYER. I often have called Prayer our Cape (if you look at a Roman's Armor, they always had a 'red cape'.....this was to prevent an enemy from knowing if the Roman Soldier was wounded or not - the red, in essence, hid the blood....). However for us our Prayers surround us and connect us to God The Father, one final Layer of His Protection and Provision.
If you are still not convinced, though, that we are 'at war' as Followers of Christ......Check out The Holy Spirit's INTEL via Paul's writing via 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 (ESV/emphasis added/jaj)...."For though we walk in the flesh, we Are NOT Waging War according to the flesh. For The Weapons of our Warfare Are NOT of the flesh BUT Have Divine Power To Destroy strongholds."....
Thus my Prayer for us today would be - O Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, Father God, we Thank and Praise You for Your Continuous Provision and Protection of us. Lord Jesus, Help us to Daily Take Up and PUT ON The Whole/Full Armor of God The Father. Holy Spirit, Inspire our Prayers, as Part of God's Full/Whole Armor to Protect and Provide not only for us, BUT for our Fellow Family of Your Faith. Father God, May we Ever Heed Indeed Your Battle Plan. Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, Father God, we Praise You for we Know, Through You, Lord Jesus, The Victory IS WON. We Lift Up our Prayers and Praise in Your Holy Name....Amen & Amen....jaj
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