Armor

“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.” Ephesians 6:13-17

“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.”  

With discipline and learning, you can easily put on the armor of God. But before you can, you have to take off the armor of the world. Some of us don’t realize it, but we have our own armor that must be dismantled before we can truly surrender to God and be a part of His army.
Before you can have the belt of truth buckled under your waist, you must unbuckle the belt of falsehood. You must let go of rationalizing everything to fit your needs instead of God’s will. If it is God will’s, then it doesn’t require rationalizing. It just is. Don’t be fooled. Falsehoods come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. They are nothing but fear and pride. Our fear keeps barriers around our heart, and pride reinforces the barriers with steel. None of it is truth
The breastplate of righteousness must replace the breastplate of unrighteousness. A perfect example of this is the friends we don’t want to give up because they come from our “hood.” Those people that change your attitude when you’re around them. You are no longer the clean-speaking, singing person, but a slang talker bobbing your head to impure rap songs. You’re being two-faced for the sake of fear. Righteousness must go with us wherever we go.
“Your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.”
Instead of peace, so many of us carry insecurities with us that we wear like they are Timberland boots, crushing everything beneath. The danger of insecurities is that we carry it over to other people. If we’re insecure about our appearance, we will secretly scorn others who look better. If we’re insecure about our abilities we will make sure we make those who outperform us feel like outsiders. The poison of these insecurities spreads faster than wildfire. Insecurity only exists in the world. When you become a disciple, it’s replaced by peace.
The hardest thing to do is to have faith. Faith is just having hope and trust in the unseen. The world trains us so well to only trust what we can see and to put our hope in what we can accomplish. The world’s best slogan: “You control your destiny.” No, God controls everything, and that includes our destiny. We do have free will, but ultimately He knows where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. But we never want to give up the reins. We have to learn to let go and let God.
“Take the helmet of salvation.”
It’s so fitting that salvation would be our helmet because our head, or mind, gets us in the most trouble. As part of the world, we don’t have salvation. We wear a helmet of imprisonment. Our mind keeps us bound to the world’s way of thinking and what we have been taught for so long. The media attacks our mind with so much garbage that it perceives as truth. It becomes detrimental to our own wellbeing.  We have to get through the mud and break the bars of imprisonment to be free. Only then we can have redemption and wear our helmet of salvation.
“…And the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
The word of God is and will always be the Bible. The world has taught us that it’s ok to twist the words of the Bible because it was written before our time, and we no longer live the same way. Or, we don’t have to use the Bible at all. The world’s bibles are the New York Times, MTV, CNN, higher education, and Wall Street. None of these speak the truth of God, but some of us stay glued to them as if our life depended on it. The word of God is the Bible, the Bible is knowledge, and knowledge is truth.
In order to equip ourselves with the armor of God, we must get rid of the armor of the world. It doesn’t happen overnight, but it can be done. It depends on our discipline and our faith, and what we want. We all have the free will to do as we like. We all choose how we will be equipped to go through this world. The question is whose army we want to fight for.
Mia Wright