Put On The Armour Of God

PUT ON THE ARMOUR OF GOD

“Put on”, in this context, simply means to be dressed sufficiently for spiritual warfare. Paul gives an instruction to put on the whole armour of God. The “whole armour” (panoplia) denotes all of the armour. When a soldier goes to war he cannot wear only a helmet, nor can he set forth with only a sword. He needs all the armour available to him.

The pieces of armour begin with the “belt of truth” being in place. All of the other pieces of armour are entwined with, and dependent on, the belt. Without truth securely around your waist and fundamental to your life there is no sense of righteousness, no peace, no effective harmony with the other pieces of armour. Secondly, the “sword of the Spirit” or the rhema word of God is God’s quickened word in us and for us. There are two categories of Word in the Bible: the written Word of God (logos) and the rhema or revealed Word of God. The rhema Word of God is God’s quickened word for your specific situation. For example: you may be in some financial difficulty or facing a relationship problem and whilst you read the Scriptures, a verse “jumps out” at you, most appropriate and pertinent to your situation, this is your weapon to fight with.

Most importantly, here is a point that we cannot fail to notice; the more logos (God’s written Word) dwells inside of you, the more rhema (revealed, illuminated Word) you will be able to receive. The Word of God is effective enough to slay the devil on all avenues of his schemes, accusations and suggestions. We must be completely filled, saturated, with God’s Word in order that we are wholly deaf to the devil’s roar in his suggestions, allegations and lies. We must see ourselves as vessels of the Word that overflows with the Word (Col 3:15-16).

We must note that the written Word of God is the only piece of armour, which is visible with the eye, which is concrete. All of the other pieces of armour are not visible to the eye, cannot be touched or handled. This fact places great emphasis on the importance of the Word of God in our lives. We cannot afford to leave the Word as a mere item of decoration in our homes. Our attitude towards the Word is our attitude towards the Lord.

Being full of the Word is not a suggestion but a command, our very ability to stand against the enemy depends on it. Your call to action therefore must be, how do you spend time in the Word? Do you set up regular daily times to be with the Lord?

Before we can go on and speak about the more intrinsic weapons of war we have to settle the foundation of the Word of God. You and I have to be people of the Word, our success depends on it. The Bible is and will remain God’s full plan for man this side of life. We must know, live and apply it thoroughly.

As James said, “ don’t be hearers of the Word, do what it says”!