Sixth Week of Lent
Ephesians 6:10-24
Monday
Read Ephesians 6:10-24 and focus on v10-13. Paul tells the Ephesians to be strong in the Lord because they (and we) are in a spiritual battle. Satan wants to destroy what God has made. And Satan especially wants to keep us from being a light in this dark world…he wants the world to stay dark. And while Satan cannot touch God, he can and does go after God’s people.
There are two extremes we can err in when it comes to Satan. We can see the demonic under every rock and difficulty that comes our way. For example, we blame Satan when we hurt ourselves during a run. Honestly, I think that gives Satan too much power. But the other direction we can err in is to not see Satan in anything and to look at conflict in this world in purely natural terms. This is what Paul is warning the Ephesians against. Satan especially wants to destroy unity in families and in the church. When a small family conflict becomes a big family crisis, we should ask ourselves how this might be a spiritual attack before we attack our family members.
As you think about the relationships in your life, how is Satan attacking you? What is he using to discourage you from following Jesus? How is he trying to keep your family from following Jesus together? How is he attacking your relationships in the church? And how do you need to be strengthened in the Lord (not in your own strength!) so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes (v11)? Take some time today and ask the Lord to strengthen you. Then as we go through the rest of this week, studying the armor of God that we need for this battle, ask the Lord to help you put this armor on every single day!
Tuesday
Read Ephesians 6:10-24 and focus on verses 14-17. Every piece of armor that Paul tells the Ephesians to put on for this spiritual battle is about the Gospel. The idea is that the deeper we go into the Gospel, the good news that we are saved only by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:8-9), the more we will be strengthened to stand against Satan’s schemes to destroy us and our relationships. The helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness speaks explicitly to the saving work God has done in us. We are saved, not because of anything good we have done, or because we go to church or because we grew up in a Christian home. No, we are saved only when God has made us alive by his grace (Ephesians 2:5). And while our actual righteousness goes up and down in our lives, the righteousness by which God accepts us is not our righteousness, but Jesus’ righteousness transferred to us (2 Corinthians 5:21).
This is good news! Sadly, however, so many professed Christians live in constant fear of their salvation, especially when they have failures in their life because they wrongly believe that God’s acceptance of them is based on their actual righteousness at that moment. Satan will try to keep us in that fear. But when we believe in Jesus, God gives us Jesus’ righteousness, his perfect track record, and that is the basis by which God accepts us.
So, take some time today and ask yourself some questions. If you died today, would you go to heaven? Why? How can you know for sure that you are saved from eternal judgment and the penalty of sin and death? And when you do sin (we all do!), are you still confident in your salvation? Why or why not? Ask the Lord to help you really understand what salvation by grace alone (not your works) is really about, and if you don’t understand, make sure you talk with a trusted friend who can help you this week!
Wednesday
Read Ephesians 6:10-24 and focus on verses 14-17. Another piece of Gospel armor that Paul instructs the Ephesians to put on is to have “feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace (v15).” When we are saved from our sins, we can truly experience peace. This is a peace that comes from knowing that no matter what happens in this life, I know that my future is secure, that I will spend eternity in heaven with Jesus, and that nothing can steal that away from me. That gives me peace to go through whatever trials I experience in life right now.
But Satan loves to get us to focus on our circumstances, and in doing so tries to steal our peace. We play into Satan’s hand when we tell God, “I’ll be fine as long as my circumstances work out in such and such a way,” or “as long as this one thing doesn’t happen, I’ll be ok.” Satan cannot steal our salvation, but he can mess with our circumstances. Just look at Job in the Old Testament! Then when things don’t go the way we want, instead of trusting God, we get mad at God and mad at anyone else who encourages us to trust God.
A friend of mine used to own a tech start-up company. You can imagine the stress being head of a small company in an industry where, statistically, the vast majority of companies fail within the first few years! But my friend always said this with regards to his peace: “My top 2,000 biggest problems were taken care of when Jesus died on the cross for my sin. And if God loves me so much that he did that for me, he’ll take care of everything else.”
Take some time today and ask the Lord to show you what the foundation of your peace is. Is it Jesus’ finished work for you on the cross? Is it knowing the promise of eternal life? Or is it your circumstances? Ask the Lord to give you his peace in any circumstance, so that you can stand firm when Satan tries to steal that peace.
Thursday
Read Ephesians 6:10-24 and focus on verses 14-17. As part of this Gospel armor, Paul instructs the Ephesians to take up the shield of faith so that we can extinguish “all the flaming arrows of the evil one (v16).” There are times in our lives where Satan tempts us with doubts and gets us to question what we really believe. That is why faith is such an important part of this Gospel armor for this spiritual battle.
But what kind of faith? Faith is sometimes wrongly taken to mean having more faith in yourself. Or others would say that if you have enough faith, if you believe hard enough, God will do for you what you want. Satan would love for us to focus on these unbiblical concepts of faith! But the faith Paul is talking about here is saving faith: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith… (Ephesians 2:8)” Satan tries to get us to doubt our status as a child of God, and instead tempts us to measure ourselves by comparing ourselves to the people around us. Satan tries to get us to question our salvation, and to get us to live in fear because of our sin, instead of believing that Jesus died for my sin and that his blood covers my sin. Satan tries to get us to doubt that we can ever overcome an area of sin in our lives when in reality, God is in the business of renewing minds and hearts (Ephesians 4:23, Romans 12:1-2). Everything that God has done and is doing for us through Jesus Christ, Satan will try to get us to doubt.
Take some time today and ask the Lord to strengthen your faith so that you can stand with confidence against Satan’s attacks. Think about areas where Satan is trying to get you to doubt your faith and belief in Jesus and pray that the Lord strengthens your faith specifically in that area. And ask a trusted friend to pray for you for your faith to be strengthened. As your faith is strengthened, ask the Lord to show you someone who you can encourage so that the Lord might use you to strengthen their faith as well.
Friday
Read Ephesians 6:10-24 and focus on verses 14-17. The last piece of Gospel armor we are looking at this week is the sword of the Spirit, which Paul says is the word of God (v17). Knowing God’s Word is critical because it points us to Jesus. It points us to the cross. It strengthens us in all the other pieces of armor we have looked at this week. And it is the best weapon to defend against Satan’s attacks. When Jesus is tempted by the devil in Matthew 4:1-11, Jesus, tired and weak from fasting in the wilderness, did not use logic, or a well-crafted philosophical argument, nor did he appeal to his own strength (in his humanity he had none!). He responded and defeated every temptation with three simple words: It is written. It is written. He responded to every temptation with God’s Word from the Hebrew Scriptures, what we know as the Old Testament. And because of God’s Word thrown in his face, Satan gives up and leaves.
But today we face a crisis of biblical illiteracy in our churches. People simply do not know the bible as they did in generations past. We have the greatest weapon available to use in our battle against Satan, and yet we do not know how to use it, or in some cases, even know that it is there available to us.
Take some time today and ask yourself: Do I know God’s Word? Do I know what is written in my bible? Do I know that the bible is one story from cover to cover, and do I know what that story is? Do I know where it begins and where it ends? Do I know how the plot unfolds to point to the climax of the story with Jesus dying for our sins?
If you realize that you don’t know very much of the bible, or hardly any at all, let me point you to two resources to get you started. One is the Bible Project (https://thebibleproject.com/). This resource has illustrated videos of every single book of the bible so that you can see how what you are reading in the Bible fits into the larger story of the bible. The other is Open the Bible (https://openthebible.org/). This resource has 50 passages from the bible that tell the overall story of the bible (1-2 chapters each), and you can listen to or read the passage, listen to or read a brief explanation of that passage and how it fits into the story, and then look at a few questions that are great for personal reflection or small group discussion.
If we are armed with God’s Word, then we can really participate in this spiritual battle. So, take up your sword!
Saturday
Read Ephesians 6:10-24 one more time and look back through the devotionals from this week. Also, take some time to ask the Lord to show you anything else from this passage that we couldn’t dive into this week. Then spend some time in prayer and ask the Lord to prepare your heart as we enter Holy Week. How do you need to prepare your heart this coming week as we look to the cross on Good Friday and Jesus’ glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday? Easter stands at the center of the Christian faith, it is the reason we can have any hope at all in this world, and so we want to be ready to celebrate that truth with our entire being!