What comes to your mind when you think of standing? Waiting? Boredom? Wasted time? I think we’ve imagined that standing is a passive activity that doesn’t require much effort, but that’s not true when we’re talking about standing for the Lord.
I won’t insult your intelligence by saying that standing for Jesus is always easy. It is not. It will require you to live with a purpose beyond what is on your daily schedule. It will mean putting Him before everything and everyone—even family, friends, and career.
It will require you to make daily decisions to stand both for godliness and against ungodliness. We are called not just to hold the ground we’re standing on now but to look ahead for opportunities to take new ground. That means we are on offense and defense at the same time. We stand for truth and righteousness. We stand for holiness and purity. We stand against evil and against anything that threatens families or the church. We stand at home. We stand in the workplace. We stand in the community. We stand . . . and we keep standing.
This sounds like work, doesn’t it? That’s because it is! Whether in your home or your workplace or the public square, standing for God requires intentionality and determination. It means being prepared to go into spiritual battle against the dark forces that conspire against us. That is why God has provided us with spiritual armor that shields us from the evil the enemy throws our way.
You’ve probably seen soldiers outfitted with an impressive array of body armor and protective equipment. I can’t imagine walking around with as much as one hundred pounds of gear, but they wear it gladly because they know it will help protect them from attack and give them ways to defend themselves.
God has provided us with an even more impressive set of spiritual armor that is no burden to carry. He knows exactly what we will need in order to protect ourselves, and He has provided for every eventuality. Paul described this armor in his letters, in this passage to the Ephesian congregation: “Therefore put on the full armor of God,” he wrote, “so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Ephesians 6:13).
Note that Paul didn’t say if the day of evil comes; he said when the day of evil comes. Paul wasn’t talking about some day in the distant future when some hypothetical evil might touch us. He was talking about the evil that we will face every day and should be prepared for.
“Stand firm then,” he continued, “with the belt of truth buckled around 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 the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (vv. 14-17).
Truth. Righteousness. Readiness. Faith. Salvation. The Word of God. This spiritual armor is available to anyone who will pick it up and wear it, but it is utterly useless to you if you leave it on the shelf of God’s armory. It is God’s desire that we go through life fully protected from the Enemy’s arrows, so I urge you to take advantage of all the help He offers you.
Allen Jackson joins Randy and Tammy this Monday on LIFE TODAY. Excerpted from Big Trouble Ahead by Allen Jackson. Copyright ©2022 by Allen Jackson. Published by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.
