God’s Armor

A mosquito is a tiny small animal but it kills so many people every single year, who would have thought right? Personally I’d think of snakes, sharks, bears, lions or anything big, however research shows that the mosquito kills on an average 725,000 people every single year! imagine that…. Where I come from, sleeping under a mosquito net is not a rare occasion, and this is done so as to avoid mosquito bites, which can go unnoticed, until you start scratching in one area or your skin swells. These little creatures transmit malaria which can be fatal.

We rarely see these buzzing tiny creatures during the day, and it is only at night that they come out to play, sneaking into our nets and if you don’t check properly before you sleep, then be sure to get a bite or two. Ave heard some of my friends say that they are immune to mosquito bites, they’ve gotten bitten one too many times that they rarely feel a thing. 2 years ago I kept getting sick headaches, vomiting, join aches, but the weird part of it was that every time I kept going to hospital, I was being treated for something new. They said I had typhoid, then amoeba, then bacteria infection! then one day as I was going on my everyday activities, I started getting fever, I was cold, I could hardly walk and since I was with my mum she took me to hospital. I was so badly off that I had to be admitted, and the next morning the tests revealed, I had highland malaria. I remember having a conversation with my doctor asking why it didn’t show in the prior tests, since they had also tested for malaria, and he said, sometimes misdiagnosis can happen. Your suffering from one thing, but it doesn’t show, and the tests just keeping giving wrong information.

Why am I writing about mosquitoes again? well first its because, I couldn’t sleep properly today, because there was this one annoying mosquito inside my net that I just couldn’t kill and so I slept with the buzzing noise all night long. And at one point I just compared the mosquito to the devil! I know it sounds weird right? The devil is like a mosquito, pretending to be harmless, pretending to be our friend, sneaking in onto our lives while we least expect it and he slowly bites us! At times we might not even notice, other times, we might see and try to hit, but y’all know how hard it is to kill a mosquito it keeps flying and hiding in corners you can’t see only to come out when you least expect it. Ephesians chapter 6:16 tells us to “take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” We don’t see these flaming arrows, we can’t see them with our naked eyes! but spiritually the enemy keeps throwing arrows at us every single day to see which one will make us fall.

He throws in evil thoughts and you extinguish it! he throws in the thoughts of stealing, but you were raised up not to steal, so for you this doesn’t even hurt you! you just dismiss it like nothing ever happened. Then he throws the arrow of adultery, and he hits you, like he finally gets your weakness! From here if your not careful and resist as the Bible tells us to, then you might just find yourself shrinking into sin and self pity. All of us are different, and the arrow that he might have used on me, if used on another person, they might not even flinch! why? our weakness aren’t the same and our strengths are also diverse! However, the Word of God is true, Paul wasn’t crazy when he wrote that we can extinguish all the arrows of the enemy with the shield of faith, question is do we follow through?

What then is faith? Faith is complete trust or confidence in someone or something. Faith is a strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction. Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) puts it very well, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see,” but I like King James version which says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” What do we hope for? what do we believe in? We believe in God the Father, we believe in Jesus Christ, We believe in the Holy Spirit. Have we ever seen any one of them? absolutely not! However, we believe that God sent His only Son, as written in the Holy Scriptures, He died on the cross for us, on the third day He rose again and He will come back to get His faithfuls. He will come to get the people who have believed in Him, yet they had never seen Him. He will come to get the people who accepted Him into their lives and lived for Him. Will our walk be easy? absolutely not! why? because our welfare isn’t against flesh and blood, its against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

That is why we have being given instructions to put the whole armor of God in Ephesians 6:13-18 “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all then saints.”  

This particular chapter teaches and gives instructions for everyday living. God knew it wasn’t going to be easy so, He didn’t leave us without instructions or a manual, that is why the Bible is there, to guide us and show us the way. Our sword is the Word of God, but how many of us read it all the time? myself included by the way! Have we put on (literally) the whole armor of God? if not which areas are not armored and which are not? if we don’t armor ourselves, then we give the devil leeway or the opportunity to hit us. But when we are guarded with the full armor of God, then all the flaming arrows the enemy throws at us will hit the metal armor and just fall! no effect whatsoever!

Visualize yourself in the battlefield, there is fighting all over the place, would you go to such a war without any armor? I don’t think so! Our lives is a battlefield that we fight everyday, but we cannot see the fight with our physical eyes. However, God is asking us to trust Him and believe that He is on the fiercest fore front in the battlefield’s of our lives fighting all our battles, will you believe it or will you doubt? I choose to believe, but even as we leave it to God to fight it out for us, we have to play our part. How? Faith! Have complete faith in God, surrender your life to Him and live right for Him.

Don’t let the devil creep in onto you just like mosquitoes and keep biting you to make you sick with sin, instead put on the whole armor of God!