Our God is a God of Healing, He desires us to be whole. God provides healing in his words. In Proverbs 40:20-23, “Pay attention to what I say, turn your ear to my word, don’t let out of your sight; keep them in your heart, for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body.” Lissa Applewhite suggests that various words of scripture are God’s “medicine” for our healing, our restoration, and our continued health! Reading and memorizing these scriptures allow these words to sink deep into mind and spirit but if we go a step further by proclaiming these words out loud they become action! Action speaks louder than words!
The Shield of Faith is part 5 of 7 of the series on the Truth of the Spirit Armor of God. Ephesians 6:16 says, “At all times carry faith as a shield; for with it you will be able to put out all the burning arrows shot by the evil one.” A shield is something we must pick up and hold up in front of us or it does no good! While a physical shield protects us physically, faith can protect our spiritual lives even in the middle of physical trials. Satan is always hurling his fiery darts of fear, doubt and worry in our direction, but the only time they can hit us is when we let our shield of faith down. When we allow doubt to creep in, as Peter did when distracted by the waves, we will start to sink.
Welcome to Truth of the Spirit. Today we begin a new series on Truth of the Spirit on the Armor of God. We hear about the armor of God in Ephesians in the New Testament. There is a spiritual war waged against us whether we believe it or not. We tend not to recognize Satan, who we know as the “father of sin”. Our ignorance of him makes him far more effective. As Christians we are in a daily battle of some sort on a daily basis. Our spiritual battle is real, even though we cannot see the attacker. But in the spiritual realm, there is a battle raging regardless of my willingness to fight. God has authority over heaven and earth; we just have to stand with him when we are bombarded by the evil in this world. It may seem that the world is getting far more evil than it has ever been before, and that may be true, but evil is not new. God wants us to be prepared. He doesn’t want us to be beaten down. But we have to equip ourselves with all God gives us. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 “For though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretense that sets itself against the knowledge of God. And we take every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” There are also some tools that are given to us by our Catholic faith. These are richly founded in our faith. Standing firm in the Armor of God does not stop spiritual warfare from raging; it stops it from defeating you.