The Armour of God

Part IV : The Feet

“And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” Ephesians 6:15

“Your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace.” Shoes are necessary for standing. They speak of the foundation. We need a good, solid foundation, and that comes through preparation. Are your feet anchored on the Rock? Christ is the only sure foundation in this world. We must be prepared so that we don't slip and fall as we battle the enemy. Everything depends on the security, safety, and the good functioning of our feet. Sandals give us good footing, a firmness of hold, protects us from certain traps or spikes put out by the enemy. We use our feet to stand, to walk and to run.

1. Standing:
Standing involves commitment and determination. We must not be ride the fence Christians. We must not compromise our Christian principles, intellectually, or doctrinally in our behavior. We have to be ever ready to stand and fight. The world today needs Christian men and women who will stand and be counted. Satan will use peer pressure to cause you not to stand. Beware of his attack. Know your convictions and stand firm for them with your Bible (sword) in hand!

“Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Eph 6:13

“Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.” Phil 4:1

2. Walking:

This is the life that we lead. How are you "walking with the Lord?" Is your fellowship with Him all that it should be?

1) God calls us to walk in love.

“And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. Eph. 5:2

2) He calls on us to walk in Christ. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”Eph 2:6

If our relationship with Christ Jesus is what it ought to be, we will be the light of the world and will be the salt of the earth. Remember, although you can not lose your salvation, that you can sin and lose your fellowship. Satan will try to make you think that you lost your position. Keep walking in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. Run:
This is our service to the Lord. We must remember that it is His fight and not ours. Satan will try to burden you down with impatience and defeat. He also can cause you to be prideful when your work is successful. He will try to corrupt your motives for ministry and will do anything to destroy your good works. Remember He promises to bless His Word and that it shall accomplish His purposes “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”Isa. 55:11.

Remember that your work for God is not in vain. “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”1 Cor. 15:58

Ok, so how do I go about doing all of this? You may have asked this question you may not. But I am going to tell you two ways to keep your feet shod with the preparation of peace. No doubt there may be more ways but for the sake of time we will cover two.

1. PRAYER : Before you go to school or work everyday. PRAY! It helps. Before you go to school you should eat a well ___________ breakfast. A balanced breakfast! We don’t always do that but if we would our bodies would probably run better throughout the day, If your car seems to turn towards one side of the road when you take your hands off the steering wheel that means you need to get your tires what? BALANCED!! Just like those things we need to keep ourselves balanced with prayer to our Father everyday. It will keep us running better and keep us from turning in the wrong direction! “Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” Luke 21:36

If Satan can hurt your foot, you'll be unbalanced. He hates a balanced Christian. He will come at you from many directions. He will try to destroy your faith in the Word of God. He will try to condemn you for your shortcomings. He will try to involve you in all sorts of sins. Sometimes he comes at us with a club, swinging hard; then he comes with flattery and in enticing, subtle ways. He comes in different forms and not always in the same way. In fact, he contradicts himself constantly. He is an accuser. He will try to drive us to extremes. One time he says we're too weak, and then he tries to make us think we're strong enough to do it in our own strength. The same enemy tempts us to both extremes. Satan hates a balanced Christian. Having our feet shod helps us to be more adaptable and flexible in our tactics of warfare. We must be ready and free to move in any direction at any time. The enemy would like to encumber us to the point that we can't move quickly and freely.

2. STUDY GOD’S WORD : “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” II Timothy 2:15

We need to get into the Word of God everyday. When we do this we are not only guarding our hearts with that which we have hid in our hearts but we are preparing ourselves for when the time does arrive that we would be tempted or questioned. How many of you have ever been asked a Biblical question from someone and you did not know the answer? I’m not saying that we will always have the answers but we need to be able to give an account of what we are learning and hiding in our hearts whenever the situation may arise. “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” II Timothy 4:2

Now in that verse it is talking about preaching, however, I believe that we can make a spiritual application to this lesson from that verse. We need to be instant in season or out of season. In other words we need to be prepared! Prepared to take a stand, prepared to take persecution, and prepared to give the Gospel to someone that needs and wants to be saved.

We must have peace in our own hearts before we can go out to win souls. If we are prepared we won’t have to worry about how to do that. A worried soldier is no good. Our minds must be on the battle and not be distracted. Our commission is to go and preach the gospel to every creature “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15

The battle for souls is a real fight, so be sure you put on the whole armour of God. Praise God for the victory through Jesus Christ!

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Part II
Part III
Part V