This devotional might seem less practical and more theoretical or theological than my previous ones, but I still think its important. How you think does affect how you act; half of our Christian walk is changing the way we think. I'll try to tie it all together at the end and make it applicable to your life in an easy to understand and real way. Anyways, enough pre-devotional rambling, here it is:
Breastplate of Righteousness and the Helmet of Salvation
The breastplate of righteousness and the helmet of salvation are the second and fifth piece of armor listed in Ephesians 6.
The breastplate was probably the piece of armor with the greatest life-saving potential. The breastplate covers the chest protecting the vast majority of your important organs. Going into battle without a breastplate was a sure way to die quickly. Wounds to the arms and legs might not be lethal – wounds to the chest often were.
The Helmet is similar – it protects the eyes which are pretty important (I like my eyes), and the brain which is definitely really important.
It's the same in the spiritual sense – without righteousness or salvation covering you, you're doomed. Unless you are righteous, you aren't getting into heaven, its that simple, and not getting into heaven means spiritual death.
How do we become righteous? As odd as it might sound, its as simple as asking Jesus to be Lord of your life. This is what salvation is, asking Jesus to take Lordship.
But what does “Lord” mean? A lord, in a historic sense, was someone who owned land. He would then have serfs on the land who worked the land and basically gave the vast majority of the food they raised to the lord. They were also required to fight for the lord if he required it. The lord, in turn, provided protection. Keep in mind this is a simplification of what was a rather complex system.
Essentially, “making Jesus Lord” means you give your life to Him. Everything. All your hopes, dreams, plans, ambitions, who you want to marry, you give it all to Him and He then gets the final say on everything. But how do we do that practically? It's not easy, it requires us to spend time in His Word, because its there we learn more of how God calls us to live. We have to spend lots of time in prayer, its a connecting point. Giving Jesus Lordship involves taking our eyes off ourselves, not thinking about what makes ME happy and how I feel about things, and putting our eyes on others – what makes him happy, how does that maker her feel? Making Jesus Lord means becoming like Him, being a servant to all, without reservation.
But how does salvation grant us righteousness? Is righteousness something we earn? No – its given.
I'll try to paint a picture of how this works by linking some verses together.
Isaiah 64:6 (NIV)
“all our righteous acts are like filthy rags”
Romans 3:10b-11 (NIV)
“There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God.”
Basically, our best attempts at being righteous fall totally and completely short.
I'm going to reference the next passage in both The Message and the NIV. I like each for different reasons, hopefully one of the translations will make good sense to you.
Romans 3:21-24 (The Message)
But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.
Romans 3:21-24(NIV)
21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
So pretty much, no matter what, we can be righteous. Jesus gives us that righteousness, its what He did, not what we do.
Romans 8:1 (NIV)
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
I was going to try doing a “modern example” here, but I don't think anything I can come up with will really compare with the simple scripture on the matter, so I'll skip that.
Jesus takes our sentence, or our penalty. At the end of the world, we will all stand before God, and our offenses will be listed – rebellion to God, refusal to obey Him, slander and gossip against our friends and family, hurting others for no good reason, the list goes on and on. But when the sentencing is done, Jesus will stand and say “I took the punishment for this one” and the evidence against us will be torn up and we will be declared not guilty. The simplest way of describing what Jesus' sacrifice does for us is this: We do not have to pay the penalty for our sins.
(by the way, I don't know if thats actually how it will pan out, to be honest I've never made it through all of Revelation (my brain usually explodes after a few chapters). That was an analogy to give you an idea of how it works, our offenses towards God are essentially torn up and thrown away because of Jesus' righteousness which covers us)
Many that would say “I don't see how God could send someone to hell just for not following Jesus.” This represents a common misconception about God. See, the thing is, God is not only incredibly merciful and loving, he is also incredibly holy and just. This holiness and justice demands perfect punishment for wrongdoing, that punishment is eternal separation from Him, or hell (which I think won't be so much a burning pit filled with sulfur as much as it will be a place where everything good will be totally absent – no laughter, no fun, no joy, no peace. Nothing but strife and pain. Anyways, that was a tangent). But in His love for us, he provided us a way to escape the punishment for our wrongdoing – Jesus death. Jesus lived a perfectly holy, sinless, and giving life. He did not deserve to die the death he did, but he chose to die it anyways. He died so that we could be ransomed from our sin-filled lives of selfish indulgence into a joy filled life of service.
That is what it means when people say that being a Christian is free but it will cost you everything – it is gift given by God, but at the same time we have to give up our lives. The thing to remember though, is that our lives before Christ aren't worth anything in the long run anyways (by the long run I mean in the eternal scheme of things), so its not like we're really giving anything up. We essentially give God a gigantic bag of trash containing nothing of value (no pop cans or anything) and he gives back to us a check titled “an eternity with Me and an amazing joy filled adventure filled life.”
Wow.
So what does all this mean practically? Stop feeling like crap. Seriously, people can get so down over their sin. Sin happens, and while its not something to be trivialized, its not something to be overly focused on, because Jesus has taken care of our punishment.. I know what its like to be down over my sin, to get trapped in that feeling of “I'm such a screw up and I'll never improve. How can God possibly love me?” meanwhile God is saying “Ricky, I died so you don't have to worry about that. Your sin is covered. Now focus on what you can DO.”
What satan wants is for us to get all focused on our sin and so focused on beating our sin that we miss out on what Jesus has called us to do: love him and love others.
I'm not advocating a liberal attitude where sinning is totally okay, I'm advocating a more positive outlook to life. Sin happens, we are going to sin, there is no way around that. Spending time trying to sin less is valuable, since sin does affect our lives in a negative way, but I would propose that all of us need to spend more time trying to learn how to love others and serve others more effectively rather than focusing on trying to stamp out one sin. I think that when we learn how to focus more on loving God and loving others sin will largely take care of itself.
I fear I can't communicate this clearly, so I'll try phrasing it yet another way: shift your focus from the sin you commit to the good God has prepared for you to do. I have found that my greatest victories against my struggles in sin have been found in times of intense ministry. Like summer camp because it's up there that my sole purpose is to serve the campers and the other staff and show them the love of Christ in a practical way. I'm not focused on myself or my sin, I'm focused on others and what I can do for them.
This is an overall principle that I think we can all try more and more to operate by. Putting others first, and ourselves second. That isn't to say we don't give ourselves time to relax, because that is important because if we're stressed out we're less effective, but it is to say that others should always take priority. Maybe I have an easier time saying that since its almost impossible to get me stressed about anything.
Christ was the same way, he focused on others primarily and on himself secondarily. He spent years of ministry healing people, preaching, and showing love to the outcasts and then ONE EVENING worrying about his death. Perhaps there is something to be learned from that.
Anyways, I hope all that made sense and that it actually helps you. This has definitely felt like a weaker devotional, I hope and pray that God empowers it and uses the truth in it to make you stronger in Him.
BTW – any feedback you have regarding these devotionals is greatly appreciated. I'm not a big company sending out a mass e-mail, I'm a person sending out mass e-mails, and I have a definite need to be affirmed and to know that people are actually reading these! Thanks to those of you that have sent feedback thus far, its greatly appreciated.
Oh yeah, check up on the verses and references I use and the context those verses are found it. I could very easily be lying or using those verses out of context to promote some heresy that'll lead you all to destruction.
While I do think that what I've said is scripturally accurate (I was exaggerating to make a point), ALWAYS check on what people say, your pastor, me, your dog, anyone. Always check for yourself.
PS. feel free to forward this to friends or family you think would like it. If you get this as a forward and want to be added to the list e-mail me at yoda.at.stillwood@gmail.com (those are periods between the words yoda at stillwood)
I have a website where I have posted my old devotionals:
http://www.freewebs.com/yoda0017/index.htm
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