Victorious Life - Armor of God

"Eph 6:11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. " is probably one of the most famous quote among believers in spiritual warfare. It is probably the most misunderstood and misused verse as well.

There are two misunderstanding:

1. It is not the Armor but the Truth signified that is important,
2. It is not for defense but for attack into the enemy territories.

The Armor

(this diagram is related to the "Victorious Life" diagram of previous post. Red is Spiritual man. Blue is Soulist man and Orange is the Bodily man)

1. Belt of Truth
The foundation, the belt that hold all other pieces together is the Truth. If we fail to know the truth, we will be in bondage. Jesus said in John 8:32 "you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."


2. Breastplate - Heart of Righteousness
We must know that our enemy the devil are always out to condemn us. If he succeeds in getting us to feel guilty then we are paralyzed. We should know that our righteousness is from Jesus Christ by his death on the cross and His resurrection to give us new ZOE (God's kind of ) Life. We are children of God. 1Jn 3:21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. Righteousness brings us victory.


3. Helmet - Renewed Mind.
Our mindset must be of God. Rom 12:2 shows us that our mind must be renewed with the Word of God. We do not follow the values and thinking of the World. We have the mind of Christ 1 Cor 2:16.

• For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, (2Co 10:4-5)

4. Shield of Faith - Body Protection too.
As we advance into the enemy territories, they will attack us with flaming darts - persecutions, sicknesses, terrors, etc.... We must be able to trust our God to protect us from all evils. No weapons formed against us will succeed Isa 54:17 .


5. Shoes - Movement of the Gospels
Shoes are for us to move - to spread the Gospels throughout the world.

6. Sword - Word of God
The offensive weapon that we have is the Word of God. Only the Word of God can destroy all pretenses, lies, distortions and evils. We move forward and preach the Word of God.

7. Prayer -Communication with God all the time
As we move in, we maintain contact with our Commander-in-Chief, who will lead us and give us grace and wisdom to overcome. We asked for boldness to go.

It is not that we put on the individual pieces of armor daily. It is about living out the Truth of Jesus in Us so as to bring glory to Him. As we bear good testimonies in the world we live in, in family, in work, in church and in mission fields, that we draw people to Jesus.

Update 5 Jun 14. Derek Prince has a good series of podcast spiritual warfare. He suggested the four offensive weapons:

1. Prayer: The promises of God’s word are not a substitute for our prayer, they provoke our prayer, and it takes our prayers to make the promises of God’s word effective in our spirit. It also takes our prayer to release the intervention of angels on our behalf.
2. Praise: Psalm 149:6 ‘Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands.’
3. Preaching: Heb 4 :12 ‘Sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit’ 
4. Testimony: Revelation 12 : 11 ‘They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death’ “