SERIES! Armor of God, P1: the Helmet of Salvation
To me, the armor of God was a cutesy Sunday school lesson. You know the one– complete with a coloring ditto, felt board lesson, and a foam craft. It was a practical analogy that was beaten to a dead horse when I was a child. But don’t you love when God turns things on their head? Recently, I was in a Bible study reading through Ephesians. In our final week of study, the armor of God came up as we read the last chapter. As we were discussing the passage, the Holy Spirit said to me, “You aren’t wearing and using your armor to its fullest potential because you don’t understand it.”
A Word for the Groaning Spirit
If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy, I can only conclude that I was not made for here. I first heard this incredibly personal lyric on an old Brooke Fraser (now Ligertwood) CD when I was 12 years old. I remember hearing the rest of the song and feeling understood in a way I never anticipated before. Suddenly, something deep inside me felt seen and spoken for as I hungrily listened. The statement behind the lyrics comes from C.S. Lewis, the man this song is named after. His version goes a little like this: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Having a Sharp Cheddar Kind of Faith
First of all, if those verses didn’t make you excited to cultivate a relationship with Jesus, I’mma need you to go back and read that again. Okay, now that you’ve re-read those juicy promises from the Lord, I want you to take a second to close your eyes and remember the moment you decided to ask Jesus into your heart. Fully immerse yourself in that memory of the Holy Spirit tugging you into a love you didn’t fully understand, but wholeheartedly wanted to know. What did it look like, sound like, feel like? Was anyone else there with you, leading you in a prayer, or were you totally by yourself?