Postby holysoldier5000 » Sun Sep 04, 2005 5:39 am
My friend you should have told me! I will be praying for you. If you ever need to talk you know how to reach me! And maybe this might help...
"Having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace." (Ephesians 6:14-17) Shoes are absolutely essential to fighting. Imagine a soldier clad in armor from head to foot but with no shoes on, a barefoot soldier. Imagine how quickly the rough ground would tear his feet and bruise them. Soon, despite the fact that he had all the equipment he needed otherwise, he would be out of combat. His feet would render him unfit to fight. But with a stout pair of shoes he would be ready and equipped, able to fight. That is what this phrase means. Equipment here is really the word "readiness" in Greek: "Your feet shod with the readiness produced by the good news of peace." It is peace in the heart that makes you able to fight.
What does this mean? Well, again it is Christ, but Christ our peace this time -- our source of calm, euphoria, i.e., a sense of well-being. Notice the relation of one piece to another and the importance of the order that I stressed earlier. The first piece tells us that Christ is the truth, the ultimate secret of reality. We have come home, we have touched the key to life of Jesus Christ. That is something for the mind to understand and grasp and believe. And then what? Well, we know him then. We stand on his merits. We put on the breastplate of his righteousness. We come on the basis of what he has done and not what we do. And what is the result of that? Our hearts are at peace! Paul says, "Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," (Romans 5:1). Calmness, courage! To use a modern term, and, I think, the most accurate, we have good "morale." Our morale is high. We are ready for anything. No ground can be too rough for Christ -- and we have Christ. Therefore we have good morale.
In the the dark days in England when they were going through the blitz, and bombs were raining down all the time. The situation was really desperate. Then Winston Churchill would come on the radio and speak to the English people when their hearts were filled with defeat and discouragement. At times they would be almost ready to quit. But that one man's voice would ring out and the nation would take heart again, and their morale would be strong. That is what Christ does. He is able to speak peace to our hearts.
A lady once said, "Oh, if I could convey something of the inner healing, the peace which has come into my heart through a recent experience. Oh, the joy of this thing -- even though it was a time of agony and anguish!"
This is the place to start. It is not a battle against people at all, is it? It is an inner fight, a battle in the realm of the thought life, in the realm of our attitudes. It is a battle in the realm of your outlook upon the situation in which you find yourself. This is the place to start. Gird up your loins with truth. Remember that in Jesus Christ you have a demonstration which no man can equal anywhere in the world. Here is the key to life, the One who is worth listening to. Believe him, Christian people, believe him! If you are Christians at all, if you have accepted Christ as the One who has the explanation for life, then believe what he says. Act on it. That is the girdle of truth.
The breastplate of righteousness protects the emotions. You do not need to be discouraged. Of course you have failed -- I fail, we all fail -- but that is what we are here to learn to overcome. The One who has come understands all this. He knows we are going to fail, and he knows we are going to struggle. He knows it will be an up-and-down experience, and a time of battles -- and we will lose some of them. But he says, "I have taken care of all that. You do not have to stand on your merits. You stand on mine. Do not be discouraged, do not be defeated, we will win through. I know what I am doing, I know how to lead you, I know what circumstances to bring you into and I will bring you through."
The third requisite is to have the feet shod with the preparation, the readiness, of a sense of peace. The place to start is to remember who you are, what you are, and above all else, whom you have. Be strong in his strength and for his sake. Remember you belong to Christ's family. The Scripture says he is not ashamed to call us brothers. God is not ashamed to be called our God. Be strong for his sake. Let us get away from this subjectiveness all the time -- "What is going to happen to me, and how do I feel?" -- remembering that God has vested his honor in us. Learn to talk to yourself and answer back to what you say. Thus you will discover that if you put on these three things, the battle is almost won right there. You will have little difficulty overcoming evil if you start right there.
God Bless
HS5K
Live your life, love the Lord, and don't forget to laugh...