The Shield of Faith Part 1!

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” – Ephesians 6:10-18 NIV

Most of us believe that having faith is the most important part of our natural lives. It is the faith that gives us hope in doing what we plan to do. As I have been having disabilities, my mother continued to feed me until I told her that I am able to eat food by myself. If we do not take a step of faith to do what we want, we have no desire and become hopeless in living our lives. Especially in disabled people’s case, they would never become independent. Faith and deed have to work together.

As believers in Jesus Christ, we believe that He gives us enough strength to do everything through the Spirit of God (see Ephesians 3:20-21; see Philippians 4:11-13). This means that God pours His Spirit into us to give us the power to believe in Jesus Christ and the wisdom on how to follow Him through faith. To put this simply, He gives us the desires of the Spirit to enable us to do what God has intended for us. In fact, the Spirit of God is the Spirit of the truth (John 16:7-15). Since Jesus has proclaimed that He is the truth (John 14:6), it is necessary to follow the Spirit. However, we often confuse the desires of the Spirit with our natural desires. I thought the Spirit was prompting me to download a Pokemon game and play it whenever I get bored. After a while, I realised that Pokemon game was one of my natural desires so I had to delete it from my laptop. The reason for this was not only it was my worldly desire, but I found that the game is quite addictive for me and I did not want the game to take over my life. My favourite Bible verses for following the Spirit is 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. It is quite okay to have fun in doing anything other than theology but I strongly believe that the desires of the Spirit relies on more about seeking, knowing and serving Christ. This does not mean that people go outside of the Spirit of God when they are not doing Christ-related things. My mentor told me that doing theology and doing something else other than theology are all parts of the plan of God. Although it is quite hard to believe this in natural thinking but I think it is true. For instance, I feel burden would come upon me if I am doing a particular thing for a while, such as theology. Thus, I have to rest my mind for a while by playing games or watching television.

Tomorrow, I anticipate on writing about eternal life in the life of the faith in Jesus Christ. Although, I think this devotional is not related to the main topic, I felt the Spirit was leading me to write about the power of the Spirit of God. Meditate on the strength Christ gives you to enable you to do and thank Him for it!