Constant Armor

Eph 6:11  Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Because this armor is unseen, because it is spiritual armor it's easy to ignore it altogether and simply go about day to day life not giving it much thought. 

Truthfully, we should don this armor and never remove it, right?  We are aware of our physicality and must pray to become fully aware of our spirituality.  The spiritual truly being much more vital to us than our physical selves in matters of eternity.  In eternity we will not possess anything we possess today- aside from the part of us that makes us who we are spiritually. We all know that physically we never stay the same, rarely from one day to the next. Changes are constantly taking place in us, constantly, unendingly.  In fact when our Savior returns for us- we will be CHANGED physically CHANGED. Even our sleeping dead will be raised up from their graves and CHANGED physically.

1Co 15:52  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

1Co 15:53  For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

1Co 15:54  So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Death will NOT be swallowed up in victory until our SAVIOR returns and we are changed, none are changed before our SAVIOR returns for us- or why would we be told the dead shall be raised and changed? If our beloved dead are already raised and changed they would have NO need to be raised and changed when our Savior returns, this is logical.

Going back to our spiritual self and the recognition of that self, we cannot afford to neglect that most important part of ourselves.

We are told to put on spiritual armor.  And truly I believe it is armor we are not supposed to take off. We are supposed to don this armor and live in this armor all the time, protected always by the armor.  Yet we cannot don this armor and forget it exists upon us because when we forget it exists upon us the danger that it is no longer with us is very real. We have to realize it just as we realize the clothes upon our bodies, just as we realize the parts of us that are with us always.  There is thought of them, thoughts of ourselves, our physical being.

This spiritual armor must be noted and in noting it just as we note a shirt, or pants, skirts, or shorts, socks, shoes and anything else we may put on ourselves, we must recognize the armor for what it is- the helmet, the breastplate, the shield, the boots, the skirt, the sword-  these are the pieces of armor and we are told what each one represents spiritually.

The helmet is salvation.  The breastplate is righteousness. The skirt is truth. The boots are the gospel of peace.  The shield is faith. The sword is the Spirit of the Word of God.

Thoughts of our salvation must be constant, they were constant with our Savior. Thoughts of Christ's righteousness but be continual thoughts.  The truth must ever be with us in all we do. The peace that is given to us by our Savior must be something we never forget.  Always we have to have faith, always believing never doubting.  And yes, the word of God should be ever with us!  This is our armor, these are our spiritual clothes, our protective coverings.  We dare NOT live without these spiritual items or we live unprotected and open to powerful spiritual assaults able to knock us away from our God. 

Yes, we are going to be spiritually assaulted all the time, but when we are protected we spiritually survive the attacks, we don't succumb to them.

We have to remember spiritual attacks can be something as unassuming as getting us to slip away from established truth substituting truths of our own devising because as soon as we do that we are no longer with Christ being known by Him.

We must think of these things because if we don't we allow ourselves to get caught up on the world and we will never know eternity with Christ.

Spiritual attacks are real and maybe not always or often blatant but rather subtle and on a day to day level meant to wear us down. Tiny attacks over a long period of time can lead to just as much destruction as one successful huge attack. The destruction here being the outcome of our losing eternity.  Satan will use every strategy he possibly can to keep us from eternity in the Love of our God, a God he denied, a God he helped crucify.

If we think Satan will stop shy of torturing us spiritually to keep us away from Christ then we are deluding ourselves. We need to fall at the feet of Jesus constantly surrendering to Him, letting Him be our everything because we truly are empty without Him.

Let us live with Christ's salvation, righteousness, truth, peace, faith, Word of God as a constant in our lives, as constant as our waking up each morning and donning our day clothes, and as constant as getting ready for bed and putting on our pajamas, let us put on the whole armor of God.

All by HIS GRACE and MERCY, all through HIS amazing LOVE, always!

Delight Greatly in God's Commandments

Psa 112:1  Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

Delights greatly in God's commandments.

DELIGHTS,  but not simply delights, DELIGHTS GREATLY. 

What are a few things you delight greatly in?  Stop and consider for a moment some of the things that delight you greatly. You know what it means to be delighted greatly. 

What are some of the things that please you immensely? What are some of the things that you favor a lot?  What kind of things do you exceedingly desire?

Is there a person that pleases you like that? Someone you delight in? Is there a televison show you enjoy tremendously and look forward to watching? Perhaps there's a special meal you absolutely crave and when you get it you delight in that meal- the satisfying taste it gives to you.  Maybe there's a special activity you desire and when you undertake it you feel a sense of happiness. 

The point is, you know what it means to delight greatly in something- you know that special feeling.  Now you have to ask yourself if you feel that sort of special feeling for God's commandments.  Do you?

Are we too caught up in the strictures of the commandments, are we immersed in the gravity of God's commands so that we can't find anything in them to delight in?

Can you delight in having  a God and no other God but that God?

Can you delight in not making any graven images to bow down to?

Can you delight in not speaking of God's name in vain?

Can you delight in the Sabbath of the Lord?

Can you delight in honoring your mother and father?

Can you delight in not murdering anyone?

Can you delight in not committing adultery with anyone?

Can you delight in not stealing anything?

Can you delight in not lying about anyone?

Can you delight in not coveting the things of others?

Can you delight in loving God and loving your fellow man?

We are told this quite plainly- 

Psa 112:1  Praise ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments.

We are blessed when we fear the LORD and when we delight greatly in his commandments.

We need to delight in the LORD's commandments comprehending that they are given to us out of love.

We have a God who  cares so much about us that He wants us to learn love and we learn love when we seek God who is love. We are told if we love God we keep His commandments.  We comprehend the love in the commandments and delight to keep them because we know we love God and truly desire to God's will as we keep His commandments.

We may be tempted to break the commandments, but temptation is not sin until it is conceived in us, until it is indulged mentally, emotionally, physically. We can delight in knowing that the commandments of God protect us, guiding us to keep as close to God as we possibly can. 

By the grace of God may we learn to delight in His commandments.

All in His love!

Walk Worthy- Forbear

"Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love." Eph  4:1-2.

We have to live our lives in LOWLINESS, in MEEKNESS,  being LONG-SUFFERING, FORBEARING ONE ANOTHER- in LOVE.

Do we?

Just how forbearing are we?  Do we set limits on our forbearance? We say things like- "I've had enough."  We say those words don't we? We end our forbearance when we reach a point often times undetermined from the get go but decided upon during a situation that is not to our liking.   We are blessed beyond comprehension that our Savior didn't say those words concerning us and our behavior. He forbears with us. 

This doesn't mean we won't ever get angry, our Savior became angry at the results of sin.  Our Savior overturn money tables at the Temple, our Savior cried out His despair over the hardness of the Pharisees hearts.  But our Savior did not stop the soldiers taking Him to the cross and say, "I've had enough."  

Love demands forbearance.  People who do not forbear hurt others, they don't love them. A healthy, mentally, emotionally stable mother who abandons her child because the child is to difficult to deal with, is not loving that child.  A marriage partner who abandons their spouse because it's too hard to endure that spouse's bad habits (not talking adultery or abuse here)  is not loving that spouse.  When we stop forbearing we STOP LOVING.

We are called to forbear one another ALL the time, daily, minutely. Over and over our forbearance is tested. Satan loves to use our inability to endure irritations large and small against us.  By the grace of God we will be able to recognize Satan's ploys and call upon God to keep us from the evil that Satan would have us commit.

Please, Father, please teach us forbearance, teach us love, teach us to rely solely upon YOU.  

As Christ Forgave You

FORGIVE!

Col 3:13  Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

Mat 6:12  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Mat 6:14  For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

Mat 6:15  But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

FORGIVE!

Stop holding grudges! It doesn't matter  what has been done to you, and I mean that! I do, I really, really do. No, I haven't been through a lot of awful things others have been through and maybe it is easy for me to say this, I don't know. I have had my share of hard knocks, my share of private agonies that have given me the need to forgive others so I do understand that it isn't always easy to forgive.  I have also been in need of forgiveness, a lot of forgiveness.

Maybe it's because I need to be forgiven so much that I know I have to forgive those who have wronged me.

It's not always the case for people though, is it?  Needing to be forgiven equally to forgiving others. Some people have to forgive horrific things when they've never done anything nearly as horrific as what was done to them.  Some are quite innocent in the grand scheme of things compared to the awfulness they endure.  Yet there is something we do need to remember perhaps, something that puts things into perspective a little tiny bit-

A single sin left unforgiven by our Savior warrants death.  And that single sin warrants death because that unforgiven sin no matter how tiny separates us from our God.  And when we are separated from God we are separated from the very source of life eternal.  If we separate ourselves from the source of eternal life we have no eternal life, we have death.

No sin should be left unforgiven.

If we need to forgive someone for a one time horror, or a slew of horrors, then that is what we need to do because we need every single one of our sins to be forgiven. 

People will say they can never forgive the horrors beyond imagining, and shouldn't have to. They say this without realizing that our forgiving others HELPS US!  It is in a way- self serving to forgive, to truly forgive. 

And when we say we need to forgive someone we must forgive entirely. Forgiving means recognizing the wrong and choosing to NOT let that wrong keep us from loving.  That's what we want from our Savior when He forgive us, isn't it? We want Him to recognize we've sinned and choose to love us even though we have sinned.  We want Him to love us even though we've wronged Him, even though we've chosen to separate ourselves from Him in our sinning.  He is LIFE!

More tomorrow all by the GRACE of our LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!

When we forgive others we reveal our belief in Christ's forgiveness.

Are you one of God's elect?

Col 3:12  Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;

Col 3:13  Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

The elect of God.

The elect must PUT ON these things.  To believe the elect automatically possess all the attributes here would be a mistake. We have to put on these things, just as we put on the whole armor of God.  We aren't taking a physical helmet and sliding it on our heads as Christian, we are taking the salvation offered to us and making it a reality to us, letting it protect us. And we must put on bowels of mercies, we have to be merciful. We have to put on kindness, we must be kind.  If we NATURALLY possessed these things would we have to put them on? NO.  We wouldn't have to be told to put them on if they were on us. We have to make an EFFORT to put these things, a conscious effort and we make a HUGE mistake believing that they should come naturally to us. That's a trap Satan loves to use with us. He'll waste no time getting us to believe that because we weren't instantly merciful we aren't truly Christ's. The same goes for being kind.  When we display something less than kindness and then use that to make us believe we aren't Christ's we are hurting our walk with Christ. We have to recognize that we must PUT on the mercy, PUT on the kindness and if we aren't putting it on, if we aren't kind or merciful in some instance we need to bow before Christ and seek forgiveness for the behavior that isn't that of elect of God.  We must comprehend we are NOT perfect but seek Christ's perfection, understanding we must ALWAYS seek Christ's perfection.  We need to be longsuffering, but our impatience proves that often impossible, doesn't it? We would despair over our impatience, our lack of humbleness, our not being meek if we seek these things as if they are of our own making. We must seek Christ first and know these things come from Christ, and put them on as Christ would have us put them on.

Forbearing one another, forgiving one another- if any man have a quarrel against ANY- even as CHRIST forgave you, so also do ye…..

We must forgive as we are forgiven and this is something we cannot ever afford to forget this, not ever.

When we are tempted to hold a grudge, when we are tempted to hold fast to the hurt that someone has caused us we are in a way asking Christ to do the same- to hold a grudge against us, to hold fast to the hurt we've cause Him, and that's the LAST thing we really want to do, in fact Christ CAN'T do that without us letting Him by us NOT forgiving others.  When we forgive others we reveal our belief in Christ's forgiveness.

When we choose not to forgive others we are revealing our disbelief in Christ's forgiveness of us- this is truth.  Because if WE can be forgiven all our awful sins how dare we have the audacity to believe we shouldn't forgive others ALL their sins!

Truth!

Please Father, please help us to put on all the attributes Christ would have us put on because of HIS mercy, because of HIS forgiveness, because of HIS LOVE for us we would be HIS.

Amen.

The Book of Truth

Truth- the Gospel.

The Gospel-the Kingdom of Heaven is Real.

The Kingdom of Heaven is Real-a Future Hope for All at the Second Coming of our Savior.

The things we should think on- true things and this is the greatest truth of all.

Php 4:8  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Whatsoever things are true- God is true, God's love is true, the Savior is true, the Savior's love is true, the Holy Spirit is true, the Holy Spirit's love is true.  We know these things are true beyond any doubt.  In a world where there is so much doubt THIS is not something we should doubt at all, it is the truest truth of all.

We need to THINK on this, we need to truly THINK on the true-ness of our Gods.  When we get caught up in thinking things that aren't true- when we get caught up in the worries and cares of this life- we have to pull our thoughts away from that and towards what we know to be true. 

We have a whole book of truth to study from, to think on.

By God's grace may we do this, may we think on the LOVE of our Lord.

Think on... this

What kinds of thoughts are we supposed to be thinking? Is this a strange question to ask? Probably because often we feel as if we have no control whatsoever over the things we think. We'll say stuff like- 'This just popped in my head.'  Or we'll say- 'My thoughts were all over the place.'  Things like that aren't uncommon and they are true. We do have thoughts pop into our heads and sometimes it does seem as if our thoughts are all over the place.  Our Bible tells us this--

Php 4:8  Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Truth, honesty, just, pure, lovely, good report, virtuous, praiseworthy-these are the purposeful thoughts we are to fill our mind with.

So while we do have things pop into our minds, and oftentimes not very pleasant things, and while we do sometimes feel as if our minds are racing in a hundred different directions at once, when we are nudged by the Holy Spirit to remember this verse, we need to direct our thoughts away from what we might call 'bad' thoughts. We need to think on things that are true and by that we shouldn't think on things that are lies, or things that are unknown because if we dwell on the unknown we are dwelling on things we can't know are true or not.  For instance, if I start thinking about my future it is for the most part unknown- we are told this--

'Jas_4:14  Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. '

We don't even know if we will live to see tomorrow, yet this can't stop us from planning various things in our lives. If we all lived as if there were no tomorrow we wouldn't live very good lives. However we have to realize that beyond a certain point we must trust wholly in the Lord and not worry about our tomorrows. Easy to say, hard to do.

It is true that if I live until tomorrow that I might go shopping, I plan on going shopping to pick up a few things.  If I start thinking about the weather tomorrow I'm thinking about something I can't know for certain but I might believe a weather man telling me his predictions based on the science behind his profession. If I worry about tomorrow's unknowns I am not thinking on something that is true because the future is largely unknown and not full of facts, not full of truths. There are future truths and they are given to us by God through His Word.   Our Savior will return- this is a future truth I can think on, and should think on all the time. Our Savior took on flesh to reveal this truth fully to mankind.

More on all of this tomorrow, by the grace of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, all in HIS LOVE!