Last night while watching the Australian Open and the Hewitt/Djokovic match, it occurred to me that Hewitt never really looked like winning the match. All he was doing was hanging in there. To my eyes, he didn’t appear to have the weapons to do his opponent any harm.
When you look at the top players they all have a massive serve, a killer forehand or some weapon that time and time again they unleash when they are in need of an extra fillip or to get them out of trouble.
As Christians we need to do more than just hang in there. We need to avail ourselves of the weapons at our disposal. These weapons are outlined for us in Ephesians 6:10-18 ,as is the identity of our opponent, verses 11 and 12.
Some of the items listed are defensive, e.g. the armor, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation. But others like ‘the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God’ verse 17 and prayer are definitely offensive. We are meant to wield them and to pray not just for ourselves in our struggles against the adversary but for all believers or as the New International Version says ‘all the saints’, verse 18.
The way to overcome our adversary is to use the resources God has made available to us and not let them sit idle.We need to be active not passive. James 4:7 tells us we must ‘resist the devil and he will flee from you.’ Of course, the key to resisting the devil is given earlier in that verse. First, we need to ‘submit’ ourselves ‘to God.’
God has given us all we need to overcome and defeat the enemy for He
‘has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ,’ Ephesians 1:3. But we still need to be pro-active and use the resources at our disposal. The armor, the prayer and the Word of God is no good unless we use it. How will you use what God has given you to overcome that sin, that problem, that spiritual enemy this week?
Look at Matthew 4 and note the way Jesus handled his encounter with Satan in the wilderness. He countered each of Satan’s temptations with the Word of God, or as Ephesians 6:17 calls it ‘the sword of the spirit.’ We can fight against Satan’s attacks using this weapon too.
Bible verses from The New International Version
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