March 21, 2016
Good Morning Warrior Princesses!
The Whole Armor of God
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. Ephesians 6:10-11(ESV)
Thank you for joining us for Session 3. Last week we were introduced to our new series- The Armor of God with a conversation about sizing up the enemy. If you are following from afar, here’s a quick recap of last week…(feel free to fill in the blanks of your listening guide, page 8, with the underlined items)
“An invisible battle is taking place where you and I get the privilege of saying the balance toward victory in the name of Jesus Christ.”
The battle unavoidable;
The enemy is invisible;
The location is accessible;
Your weapons are not physical; but
The victory is irrevocable!
AMEN
Christ is seated in heavenly places and has proclaimed victory over the enemy! As believers (because we are in relationship with Jesus Christ), we are seated there and we are victorious in Christ. With that in mind, the enemy knows the outcome, but will continue attacking, deceiving and throwing the whole kitchen at us.
What can we do?
Change our perspective and realize that whether we want to be in a battle or not, we are. Therefore, we need to act with a sense of urgency and as Paul states in Ephesians, “Put on the full armor”. Only with armor can we resist and stand firm.
Princesses, keep looking up, our hope lies in Christ and we do the have the victory. (I’ll come back to the highlighted word in Part 2 of this email!)
Over the next six weeks we will learn what it means to put on the full armor of God each day. We will continue to strengthen our understanding of the power of the Holy Spirit, our relationship with God.
In other words…princesses in order to stand firm, we must stay lock step with the Holy Spirit. Why? Because "life is in the Spirit" (James 2:26). Our daily strategy is daily prayer. (Pour out, Pour In and Pour Forth- Session 2 “Living Beyond“). Priscilla discusses on page 34 (Week 1, Day 5) that there are actually 7 pieces of armor, the last is ~ PRAYER.
Prayer is the “linchpin that holds our armor together”.
Prayer “empowers and ‘charges up’ every other piece so they can be used effectively against the enemy. Without prayer…your armor, cannot, will not, be infused with the power that only God’s-Spirit can give.”
God is good.
As we journey in Session 3, we will be learning Ephesians 6:10-19. Each week we will take a section to memorize. I will list the section we are learning at the beginning of each Monday’s email. I want to take the rest of this email to connect our conversation to some important events this week. (See Part 2, continued)