"Take the helmet of salvation..." – Ephesians 6:17a (NIV)
Isn't it odd that every time you set out to do the work of God, you seem to be pushed back, resisted, or bombarded with attacks to your mind, relationships, and perhaps even your physical body itself? It can be really daunting, disheartening, and make you feel like you are in a battle for your life! Well, I hate to tell you this, but you are, in fact, in a battle for your life! Because of Satan and the evils of this world, we as believers are in a battle for our lives and for the whole of Christianity. We are fighting for God and the fight is hard! There is however, hope since God understands our battle and our needs to fight.
Paul tells us in Ephesians that we must put on the armor of God to stand against the schemes of the devil. But, what is the armor of God anyway? Today, we are on our sixth part of our series all about the armor God gives us to stand against the evil one and what it means to put it on as a soldier of Christ. Last time, we drove into what is means to hold up the Shield of Faith and today we continue as we learn all about the Helmet of Salvation.
When I was young my parents always made sure that I was wearing a helmet when I went out to ride my bike. My brothers would say but that was probably because I was so bad at riding a bike, or any type of athletic pastime they had to make sure I didn't fall and break my head. Still, my brothers had to wear them too, so I wasn't necessarily the case. My parents did however understand the importance of my brain and what it took to protect it from injury. You see, the brain is really where everything comes together. The brain is essentially you. It's where our thoughts become actions, it's where we figure out who we are intellectually, he gives us the ability to understand what we read and hear. Our brain is extremely important; perhaps the single most important organ in our body.
Last week, we spoke about how the enemy attacks us and how that's not necessarily in a physical way; but rather, in a spiritual and mental way. Satan wants to tear down what we know to be true in order to make us question and even fall back on our beliefs. And unfortunately Satan knows the Word and uses it against us... in fact, Satan probably knows the Word better than we do; so he is well equipped for the attack. The key to winning against his evil schemes is to be mindful of what you hear.
The first way to do this is to be firm in our Salvation through Christ. The great enemy will forever seek to pull us away from God by making salvation seem unobtainable or even a great burden to bear. As Christians, we should not only know and believe that Christ died for our salvation, but be grounded in the understanding of how we must accept such salvation through our faith. Satan wants to get us off track. He wants to make us think that we have to earn our salvation in some way. He wants to use that to remind us that we can never be good enough or do enough to do so. Then, he wants to tear it from us as our minds grapple with the understanding that we aren't enough... and it's true, we aren't.
We need to know that. We need to protect our minds with the understanding of Christ and fix it so firmly there that nothing can come to injure us. We need to be able to be so secure in Christ's sacrifice that the weight of our own humanity and guilt cannot crush us.
How do we do that? If we are protecting our mind, it obviously must start there, right? We need to delve into the Word, study it, and condition our minds to know the truth and to weed out what is folley. That's not always easy. Like I said, our enemy knows the Word better than we do and he loves to use it against us. The thing about Satan is, however, he will manipulate the truth to create a lie that sounds really good; only to pull us back into his grips again. That's when our knowledge has to be so firm that we can decipher what is true and what is fake. That's when we have to know God's voice, like a shepherd guarding our way. Not so that we might boast, but so that we can identify attacks as they come and before they are able to administer a crushing blow.
Next time, we will continue this discussion of the Armor of God as we look at how we can not only use our knowledge of the Word to protect our minds and spirits, but how it cab be used as a weapon itself to defeat the schemes of the evil one. I hope you join me.
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