Welcome back!

This is the second part of this series. If you are just joining us, I encourage you to do a quick catch up by reading the first part.

We ended the first part  with the very long but powerful, Ephesians 6: 11, 13-19;

“Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil…Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faithwith which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints-and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”  NKJV.

Question: How do you ‘put on’ salvation, righteousness, truth, faith, and the word of God?

When I tell my teenage boy on a hot sunny day, ‘go put on some clothes‘, chances are that, by my reckoning, the young man may be overdoing the thing of trying to stay ahead of the weather through baring. So apart from an initial juvenile whining, if at all, I expect that he’d move towards his closet, grab a tee-shirt and cover-up.

Now, wouldn’t you love if the whole armour of God were just a tee-shirt that can just be pulled on? 🙂  You only have to wear it once and stay eternally covered?  🙂  ……. I would personally love that!  Unfortunately, this armour is designed to be worn regularly,…. and for a good reason too. Because every time this armour is pulled on, a strong sense of one’s identity in Christ is reinforced.  Halleluyah!

The ‘Armour of God’ enumerated in Ephesians 6, is not a man-made armour.   You can’t make it, you can’t manufacture it, you can’t produce it.

It is ‘God’s Armour’. 

This is quite instructive , and for me, very fundamental to understanding how this armour works.

The Armour of God is God’s Armour! All I need to do is wear it every time to stay totally clothed with the whole of God.  Because if it is the armour of God, then God wears it too (halleluyah!).  Ain’t no wile from hell touching me when I am fully suited with God (ho-ho-ho).

Therefore, when properly worn, the ‘Armour of God’ should boost one’s confidence and make you walk with shoulders squared (this is absolutely exciting and mind-blowing for me!).

Now, there are different components (parts) of the Armour of God. Interestingly (and like man-made armours), each component strategically covers a given part of the body.

The Breastplate of Righteousness

A breastplate is the front portion of a plate armour covering the torso (chest). A breastplate, when used on horses, helps keep the saddle from sliding back.

What is righteousness? -This is the quality of being morally right or justifiable. It also means worthiness, nobility, honest, blameless, guiltless.

You know, another meaning of righteousness is uprightness. And an upright person is one who’s never lied or committed sin.

There is no such person!

I recently heard about a ‘christian sect’ where ‘righteousness and sainthood’ are attained or conferred. Please watch out for my upcoming blogpost; ‘The journey to Sainthood in Christ Jesus‘ as I debunk such myth by the Spirit of God.

When Paul says; ‘put on the breastplate of righteousness‘, he’s not saying to a select group of ‘qualified’ persons to do so {selah} because as we see in Romans 3:10 (Amplified), there are no righteous persons;

“As it is written and forever remains written, THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS {none that meets God’s standard}, NOT EVEN ONE. 

Before God therefore,  it is impossible for anyone to be morally right, justifiable, honest, blameless, or guiltless through self effort.

The only holy and righteous being is God.

But thank God for Jesus Christ! He made a way…

2 Corinthians 5:21 (NKJV) tells of an exchange that took place following the great selfless sacrifice of Jesus Christ;

“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him“.

Halleluyah! Halleluyah!! Halleluyah!!!

I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I have right standing with God. I am blameless and guiltless, …all because of Jesus Christ.

So when I put on the Breastplate of righteousness (by continuously professing it), my heart is not troubled or perturbed, that peradventure, sin or any sort of guilt could separate me from the love of God, thereby exposing me to Satan.

It’s a done deal.

I couldn’t gain my own righteousness (worthiness, honesty, etc) no matter how good my works were. Jesus Christ offered Himself as an eternal sacrifice to purchase me Righteousness from the only Righteous One- Jehovah. And now, I have the Righteousness of God. Halleluyah!

Brethren that is how you put on the Breastplate of Righteousness; by confessing and proclaiming that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Sin, therefore has no hold on you, neither does Satan.

I love the Righteousness of God! …..Thank You Faithful Father.

Somebody asks; ‘well, Grace, why is this a good news? 

You know how many times Jesus said to a sick person after healing; ‘go and sin no more‘?

True that not all sicknesses result from sinful acts, but there’s a relationship between sin and disease. There is a relationship between an unrighteous living and being exposed to the one whose mission is to ‘steal, kill and destroy‘- Satan.

And that is why the location of RIGHTEOUSNESS as the Breastplate is crucial as the HEART Is located over your Chest area. The feeling of guilt, defilement or unworthiness all stream from the heart. The lure and desire to sin, stream from the heart. So with the Breastplate of Righteousness you are protected from being pulled back into sin and from feeling depressed with guilt if you accidentally sin. Halleluyah!

I am so thankful that Jesus Christ ensured that I stay well protected from Satan when He made His righteousness available to me.

I know who I am.  I AM THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN CHRIST JESUS. I overcome this world (and sin) because I am born of God. In this state and with a consciousness of my identity, Satan cannot successfully hurt me.

Halleluyah.

As always,..

I love you.

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Friends/Sisters/Brothers,

Greetings!

I feel a deep need to apologize for delaying this blogpost, a topic The Lord dropped on my mind many weeks ago. As always happens every time there’s this kind of delay in developing and publishing a God-given topic, multiple events relating to the said topic begin to occur all around me.  This usually makes me sad, and I’d usually start apologizing to The Lord in my heart for not responding promptly to His prompting  🙂     He always forgives me (and I am hoping you would too). I am encouraged always because he has never told me the topic has expired and irrelevant. I believe strongly therefore that every ugly, unpleasant situation that this post was meant to fix many weeks ago, can still be fixed today. Jesus Christ is the SAME yesterday, today and forever! Halleluyah

I tinkered with the topic for this post, maybe, for way too long….and as it seems, I landed 3 mega topics in one!! To praise The Lord or to be sorry for myself?  🙂  ………  Well, I love long blogpost series  sometimes because every time a sub-section gets published, my spiritual antennae are set way up (on the particular topic), to catch as many revelations as The Lord would give me.

This is a very long, wide and extended topic. It is expansive and I am really excited to be doing it at this time.

There are 3 subsets to this topic:

1. His armour
2. Our weapons
3. The warfare

In my very short time of knowing and serving the Lord (over 2 decades now), and particularly in the past few years of serving The Lord through graceobomanu’s blog and Talk with Grace Obomanu (running into 4 years now), I have learnt that Satan takes added interest in anyone who loves and faithfully serves The Lord Jesus Christ. It’s a battle of kingdoms and happens ALL the time. Only this time, a WINNER was declared thousands of years ago. And this WINNER transferred all His winning rights and privileges to His followers. And I am one of them {say same for yourself}

Everyone who is in Christ Jesus, WINS! And everyone who is in Christ Jesus should be battle-ready at all times.

Did I hear you ask; ‘how possible is it to be battle-ready at all times’? And ‘why be battle-ready if we are already Winners’?

Stay with me on this blogpost series as we embark on an interesting, revealing and exciting journey into winning every spiritual warfare by being fully suited with the whole armour of God using our spiritual weapons.

His ARMOUR

An armour is a covering, usually made of metal, soldiers wear to cover and protect their bodies in battle. A well-trained knight would wear armour for protection before a fight. Some vehicles have hard metallic coverings -armour, to protect them against attacks.

As a verb, the word ‘armour’ would mean to provide someone with emotional, social and other defenses.

No other Bible verse best describes ‘the armour of God’ to suit the context of this article like Ephesians 6:10-18,  but first,  take a look at 1 Samuel 17:4-7, a vivid description of how a well-armoured soldier looks   🙂

 “The Philistines had a champion fighter named Goliath, who was from Gath. He was over 9 feet tall. Goliath came out of the Philistines camp. He had a bronze helmet on his head. He wore a coat of armour that was made like the scales on a fish. This armour was made of bronze and weighed about 125 pounds. Goliath wore bronze protectors on his legs. He had a bronze javelin tied on his back. The wooden part of his spear was as big as a weavers’s rod. The spear blade weighed 15 pounds. Goliath’s walked in front of him, carrying his shield.”   ERV. 

Let me thank my Pastor (Pastor Mrs Nkechi Ene, Presiding Pastor, The Carpenter’s Church, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, for drawing my attention to the Easy-to-Read Bible Version, which is very explicit with descriptions -excellent for visuals).

I am convinced that there is no need to bore you with the tiny details of Goliath’s armour (which by the way, David thought was ridiculous), well, at least not for this article, but notice that the Bible carefully listed the particular parts of body that Soldier Goliath covered. His head, chest, loins, legs/feet, and with readily accessible weapons -the javelin and the spear (in his hand).

A part of  Apostle Paul’s closing lines in his letter to the Church at Ephesus (Ephesians 6) was for the church to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might by putting on the whole armour of God. Oh! how often we, as Christians, so carelessly walk around unarmoured!  Brother Paul admonishes us to be ready always to withstand the wiles of the devil.

The Wiles of the devil don’t come at us shouting; ‘I am a WILE of the devil, I am a WILE of the devil’. That’s why Paul coined them ‘WILES‘.

Wiles are devious, cunning, manipulative, persuading tricks, schemes and strategies. Wiles are intended to deceive, seduce and manipulate.  Guess who has totally mastered the art of using wiles…. Satan!!.  He throws wiles as darts all the time. Then he awaits your response/reactions. The moment you say ‘yes’ to any of these darts, he aims at you fully.

But thank God Jesus saw through him, big brother Paul saw through him and I am hoping every Christian would see him just as he is- cunning, manipulative and seductive, constantly creating mirages to spread fear, hopelessness and despair.

The devil’s wiles are subtle, often clad as harmless baits which can easily ease into our lives and circumstances. Therefore to be sensitive, discerning and alert at all times, every follower of Jesus Christ must be  fully armoured at all times.

What is the ARMOUR of God?

In spite of the minute details provided of Goliath’s armour, I cannot categorically say it was a complete armour (forgive me). Did Goliath feel some part of his body was still at risk of being hurt despite his regalia? Possibly  🙂

Thankfully we have no such fear with our spiritual armour, ……we find the FULL (whole) armour of God in Ephesians 6: 11, 13-19;

“Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil…Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints-and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”  NKJV.

Question: How do you ‘put on’ salvation, righteousness, truth, faith, and the word of God?   🙂

The answer to this question (and more) will be coming to you in the second part of this blogpost series.

Stay with me.

My love always……