Ephesians 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armour of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.
I think life should be easy.
We’ve been taken in by all those adverts. So as long as we drive a Volkswagen Golf, all our journeys will be peaceful. As long as we get the right pension, in retirement we’ll look like that perfectly healthy couple, who are just a bit grey, but run marathons for fun.
We’ve been conned into thinking life is like a stroll round Ambleside on a sunny day, taking in the views of the Lake District. But it’s not. We’re living in spiritual Afghanistan.
I say conned because that’s what the devil has done. He’s such a master of subtly we don’t even notice him. In the Western world we’re so convinced that the material world is all there is that we don’t take evil spirits seriously at all.
So the devil uses our materialism against us. He doesn’t make your TV float round the lounge to freak you out. He just makes sure that you’re worried about whether it’s the latest HD model. He doesn’t levitate your car. But he does tempt you to worry about how much the garage bill is going to be.
Now here’s my problem. I live in spiritual Afghanistan. The devil is the spiritual Taliban. He’s got all the intelligence he needs on me. He’s planted spiritual IED’s beside the road of life. He’s laid ambushes along the way.
The Lord says, “Just before you go out there, I’ve got this great Kevlar vest for you to wear. No bullet can get through it. I’ve got a new helmet. It’s explosion proof. I’ve got fantastic machine gun for you to take down the enemy with. And you can even ride in my tank if you want.”
And I do the Spiritual equivalent of saying to God. “Look Lord I’m a bit busy getting the kids to school. So I’m going for a stroll in Helmand in my shorts, T-shirt and sandals. I’ll be OK.”
And then we wonder why we keep getting wounded. Why there are so many Christian casualties? Why life hurts so much?
We have to be in one of the worst periods of Christian history for simply reading and meditating on God’s word in the Bible. So few of us pray earnestly and fervently and dependently to him.
God says to us: “6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.”
And we say: “I think I’ll try on my own thanks.”