The Armor of God, Part 2

Ephesians 6:14b - "having put on the breastplate of righteousness."

Last week, we talked about the key element of truth in Spiritual Warfare. If we are up against the master deceiver and father of all lies, and we are, we must combat his lies with truth. We must do as we have been talking about on Sunday mornings and earnestly contend for the faith, which was once and for all delivered unto the saints. We saw how that belt of truth holds the whole armor together.

This week, I want us to focus our attention on the breastplate of righteousness. As you may know or can figure out, the breastplate is what guards the heart. Solomon wrote in Proverbs 4:23-27: "Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life. Put away from you a deceitful mouth, and put perverse lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you. Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right or the left; remove your foot from evil."

I believe this is so key to putting on the breastplate of righteousness. The word righteousness there is speaking of our righteous deeds more so than our righteous standing in Christ. We must do the right things and make the right choices, if we are to withstand the onslaught of the enemy. Solomon understood this and understood that when we don't make the right choices, many times it is because we have a much deeper problem, which a heart problem. Our hearts simply put are not in the right place.

We must guard daily our hearts to keep it in the right place. Why? Because if we don't, it's not long until our feet stray as well. When your heart strays away from God, your feet are soon to follow. When our hearts are not in the right place it affects our mouths, our eyes, and our feet. The wellspring of our hearts can get clogged up with the dirt of the world. That dirt will put our fire out and cause us to have congestive heart failure in a spiritual sense.

If we find ourselves with spiritual heart disease, what should we do? We should start by diet and exercise. Begin to nourish yourself with the milk and meat of God's word. Exercise by being a doer of that word. And let God's Spirit restore you to good health. If your condition is very severe, you may have to let God's Spirit do heart surgery. Maybe you need to bypass some relationships. Maybe you need to have a clot removed, where the junk of the world is about to choke you and kill you. Whatever the case, give your heart afresh and anew to Jesus! Live for Him who is our strength!