"Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one" V16 of Ephesians 6:14-18. NKJV
One moment you may be going along fine and joyful, the next, BAM, you're flat on your face and in the depths of despair. What happened? You were hit by one of Satan's arrows, one designed to take you out. This may be in the form of sickness that hits you in a moment. Or it may be you're involved in an accident of some sort or something else that takes the wind out of your sails.
Derek Prince says, 'The devil chooses the weakest moments and the weakest place,' and there is a lot of truth in this. However, it's not always this way. Many times we have begun or completed a new piece of work for God and we are so excited at the potential of the project, and suddenly it goes wrong or someone comes along and totally destroys it all by negative and hurtful words. We are devastated but we need to know that we're under an attack.
You see, the devil is quite skilled at distracting us from our work for God. He'll use people to pour scorn on what we have done, distracting us and others from what He has planned. On a small scale we may decide to have a closer relationship with the Lord by increasing our quiet time with Him. As soon as we begin, the telephone may ring, the kids may urgently need us or someone may call at the house. We're distracted.
On a larger scale, our whole ministry may be going so well with excitement bubbling and then suddenly, something goes wrong, preventing the work going on. Satan fires scud missiles at us and they're sent to achieve distraction and mayhem. The acronym of SCUD is (S) Satan, (C) Continually, (U) Uses, (D) Distractions. This helps us to see that Satan has to fire something major at us to prevent us doing God's work. If you're under attack, you're on the right path.
But we must wear the Armour of God, we're lost without it. Soldiers don't go into battle without some sort of protection. Now you can use a small shield of faith or a large one. For myself, I choose the large size because it covers us all over. What I'm talking about here is, our faith. You've either got it or you haven't. If it's the latter, then you won't please God (Hebrews 11:6), and you'll be walked all over.
This is why our faith needs developing, we need to stand and keep standing so that whatever comes our way, we can withstand it. This means we can resist or oppose the attacks with a determined effort.
You're a soldier, so put your armour on and stand. If you get kicked over, get back up again. We never surrender because we're warriors of God and this means that we are winners. You may not feel that way but it's true. Start doing your exercises right now - read, pray and study the Word. You never know when an attack is coming!
Copyriight 2020 Grahame Howard
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