Gtcotr/ws012622
Ephesians 6 NKJV
13 Therefore take up the
whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and
having done all, to stand.
14 Stand therefore, having
girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15 and having shod your feet
with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 above all, taking the shield of faith with
which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the
sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;
18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints —
We are encouraged to have our feet shod with the gospel of peace, while being armed with the Word and prayer. (Note: It’s like a policeman or soldier having both a weapon and a radio to call for backup.)
Perhaps the single most important pursuit of God is to live in peace with mankind both in this life and in the next. God has ultimately aimed everything He has done, is doing, and will yet do, towards the end result of peace. He wants to live in peace with people on earth and throughout eternity … and He will. The question is … will you?
People who choose to not accept the Gospel of peace, which was made possible by Jesus, the Prince of Peace, will one day simply not live at all. This approach may seem harsh to some human ways of thinking but not to God. He is unwilling to allow people to destroy the peace of His eternal kingdom. God has put up with the unruly and ungodly for a long time, but the Bible says that He won’t always do it, (Genesis 6:3). God is not going to live the rest of His life like this.
Certainly God is patient and does not just swoop down on an individual, a nation, or a generation and take an undeserved swipe at them. The patterns of God’s purpose and process can be seen throughout the whole Bible. As Proverbs 26:2 says: The curse will not come without a cause.
God has provided a way to live in peace with Him through Jesus, the Prince of Peace. God is determined to have peace at all costs.
Acceptance of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way to obtain peace with God. The Gospel of Christ is the power God unto salvation for everyone. There is simply no other way to live in peace with God.
The list of the armor of God which we are encouraged to put on in Ephesians 6 clearly paints a picture of a soldier prepared for war. Why associate peace with an image of war? Throughout the scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, God demonstrates the lengths He is willing to go in order for Him and His family to live in peace.
·
Peace with God comes from being right with God.
·
Peace
is a fruit of the Holy Spirit that grows in a life submitted to God.
· Our struggle for peace is often a struggle between two opposing forces within us. Namely, doing, saying, thinking, feeling what we want, which is often destructive to others, versus doing, saying, thinking, and feeling what God wants. Which is a blessing to others.
Peace is not agreeing with everything someone else says or does, unless that someone is Almighty God. The peace we must pursue is first peace with God … not first peace with man. When we have peace with God, we will live in peace with everyone else who has peace with God.
Just because someone says they have peace with God, does not mean they do. God does not peacefully co-exist with people who are filled with lusts, driven by greed, hungry for power, motivated by personal gain, practicing deception, intending harm, causing pain, discarding truth, or living in sin. Those who practice ungodliness without conscious conviction are reprobate, not righteous.
Having our feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace means we are prepared for war should peace demand it. And we must be willing and prepared to fight for peace. This is seen not only in the scriptures but also throughout world history.
What would have happened if the Allies had been unwilling or unprepared to go to war with Hitler and the Nazi regime during WWII? I dare say today we would all be living under a tyrannical dictatorship with our children more subject to the state’s wishes than to those wishes of their parents.
Your sons and your daughters would be taken from you without permission or recourse and, as happened during the early 1940’s, the young teenage girls would be placed in dormitories and subjected to involuntary sex with those smart, strong, blonde, Arian-type males in order to raise a super race of superior warriors for the Fuhrer and his vision for the future.
All other sorts of people would be enslaved and relegated to the workforce and often disallowed to reproduce or if flaws in mental or physical acuities were found, they were simply euthanized.
I’m not talking in some hypothetical sci-fi futuristic sense; this was actually happening and the only way to protect a world from the loss of all peace of life and liberty was to go to war to secure that peace. There can be no lasting peace without Jesus and Jesus just does not do things like that.
Peace with God demands a person is right with Him. And Where there is no peace with God there can be no peace between neighbors and nations.
(Note: Consider recounting GTCOTR’s long standing contention and eventual lawsuit with Amoco Pipeline. God gave us a scripture:)
Deuteronomy 20 NKJV
10 ¶ “When you go near a city
to fight against it, then proclaim an offer of peace to it.
11 “And it shall be that if
they accept your offer of peace, and open to you, then all the people who are
found in it shall be placed under tribute to you, and serve you.
12 “Now if the city will not
make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it.
13 “And when the LORD your God delivers it into your hands, you shall strike every male in it with the edge of the sword.
We have been armed with the Gospel of peace. The Gospel will not always be popular or readily accepted in a society which is absent of the righteousness of God. However, this Gospel message of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, our Savior, must still be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations. We can ill afford to lose our freedom or disregard our mandate to be a light of truth shining in the darkness of this world.
This is why it is so important for us to remember that we are not wrestling with flesh and blood but against sinister dark and evil spirits which manifest their will and wreak their havoc by using people to achieve their goals. There is no doubt that Adolph Hitler, and many others throughout history, were possessed by devils and were strategically working against God and set on destroying the will and the ability of God’s children to resist. This has happened all throughout history and continues to this day.
Six million Jews and countless other numbers of people who stood in the way of what the demons wanted were executed by a man possessed of evil. Thank God for those who refused to stand by idle and uninvolved. In pursuit of peace, they stood up and spoke up and ultimately placed their lives on the line in order to secure peace for their families, and generations to come. They also delivered many they never met and restored all that was right.
Today God is speaking to us and encouraging us to put on the whole armor of God and be to be armed with the Word of God and prayer so that we might be able stand against the methods of the devil. Don’t be deceived, evil forces will attempt to bully you into letting them have their way in this world over what is best for our families and friends. The devil may deceive the lost, but we cannot afford to be caught up in his deception. Souls are hanging in the balance, and they need to know the truth. Don’t leave it up to someone else to tell them. We must be prepared with the Gospel of peace. Peace comes from being right with God …
Don’t
let anyone stop you from telling others about Jesus.
