Ephesians 6:15-16
and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness( or preparedness) given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith to extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one (Shield of Faith – we already discussed this; this is just a reminder of its importance).
Welcome back, I trust the last Vida was like a huge vitamin pill for your spirit. These are very personal examples and situations that I have been through. Everything I talk about in Vida comes from situations and or experiences from my life, the paths God has walked with me through. None of it is just head knowledge. It is all practical knowledge, boots on the ground, and victories and defeats. In this segment, we are talking about the shoes the Roman soldier wore and how we can apply what the shoe (sandal) means spiritually.
The shoes of the Roman soldier had spikes in them; we would call them sandals. The spikes helped the soldier to hold his position in battle and advance. So, spiritually speaking, what helps us stand or take ground? Is it not His Word committed to memory? Imagine you are hiking, and all is well. You have your hiking shoes on, and you are climbing. Suddenly, the path gives way, and your adrenaline kicks in as you run, seeking firmer ground. What would have happened if you were not in proper gear? Instead of hiking boots, did you have church shoes? You would have slipped/fallen and potentially been seriously hurt, being unprepared to respond to the danger. Such is God’s Word, “our hiking boots,” when read and memorized. It makes us prepared for the events that spring up in our lives. The more time it takes to prepare, the more casualties we suffer, and the more ground is lost.
My daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids just returned from a week’s vacation in Hawaii. Upon opening their front door, they walked into a flooded home. They had some refrigerator work done just before their trip, and an improperly placed hose was the cause. Were they ready for this? No, but were they “prepared”? In the context of having home insurance, yes, they were. What would have happened if they thought home insurance was too expensive or we would never need it? They would have been in a world of hurt. There is this attitude among believers: “I’m fine, life is good, I don’t need to read the Bible; I go to church, and that’s enough. After all, I don’t want to get too religious.
Jesus said, “Those who have ears let them hear.” How about seeking Him just because He’s Worthy of me seeking Him because He Absolutely Loves me?
Hosea 4:6
My people perish because they have rejected My Word (the next words you never want God to say to you). Therefore, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. God is very patient and loving, but if we continue to reject Him, He withdraws His presence from us.
Jeremiah 31:3 (this is His heart)
The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee (sometimes that loving kindness takes the form of discipline. It’s out of love that He chastens us, for He knows if He doesn’t, we will go adrift, being drawn and deceived by worldly desires that, if we continue in them, pit us against Him). You never want to find yourself in this position.
Hebrews 12:10-11
For they (our fathers) verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness (for without Holiness no man shall see God. Hebrews 12:14).
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but **grievous (painful): afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised( its work!) thereby.
** Grievous – one of the definitions is the pain associated with giving birth. Application: the trial is to give birth to a godly attitude while a sinful, prideful attitude dies. It is a painful process as God brings us to our knees to surrender our ways to His ways. It can be a grievous process, but once over, peace, joy, and a closer walk with The Lord are achieved.
So, we understand that it is paramount that we understand and know what God says in His Word. For He is bound by the confines and liberties found in it (e.g., He hates sin, period, in us and in our world, and His love is unlimited as it is shouted from the Cross where He dared crucify His Only Son for sinful man. Who would do that but God alone). Therefore, when things are hard, and at times super hard, knowing what God says about trials and His love for us will keep us from blaming Him. Satan will take every opportunity to slander God. Telling lies about Him that if you do not know what the Bible says, you will naturally believe the lie. For example, no human beings were closer to God, saw God, and spoke with Him more than Adan and Eve.
Yet the master of treachery and blasphemy, satan, webbed a lie that trapped Adan and Eve and ruined mankind. So what makes you think you or I won’t fall into deception? You must be in His Word to be able to overcome. Know that we are very much in spiritual warfare, and the hater of your soul wants you to blame God. To be mad at God and feel as though He doesn’t care about you. That can’t be further from the truth, but you have to choose to believe His Word above your own emotions and interpret the current events in your life. There are many examples in the scriptures of God’s chastisement of His sons and daughters. However, if we do not learn from these examples and are disobedient, e.g., like Jonah the prophet, then there are some unpleasant and real-time” consequences. They may only affect us, but they could also affect our families. Israel wandered in the desert for 40 extra years. Were the children at fault for their parent’s rebellion? Of course not, but they also had to endure the extra years.
You may get mad at God, thinking He is to blame for all the trouble in your life, but it is not Him or His fault. He permits situations, refining us, and in the process, we become more humble and dependent upon Him, as He did with Job. Probably the most intense testing recorded in scripture, aside from Christ Himself, but trials are never sent to destroy us, never, but to refine us. If gold could speak while in the furnace melting at 1,945 degrees, the dross would be separated from it and become pure gold, unmixed (which is one definition of purity, unmixed with the world, separate). What do you think it would say? And then afterward, what would it say when it is shining and pure? Probably the same thing a mother says before and after giving birth.
He gave us His Life to save us from the natural consequences of sin. Also, He doesn’t have to cause or do anything for suffering to happen. He leaves us to ourselves; self, pride, and sin can easily take over and ruin our lives. It happens naturally as we pursue a life without God’s blessing or direction.
I find it interesting that when we want something, we are persistent until we get it. If it’s a car, we save until we can make a down payment. That car will last seven years, maybe 10, until we start looking for another one, regardless of how hard we worked to get it initially. Nothing is as eternal as our faith; we do not put the same effort into cultivating it as temporal, worldly desires. We are too earthbound. In this, I find fault with us and often wonder how God remains so patient and loving when it cost Him everything.
Nothing is greater, more lasting, or more important than our relationship to Christ. And those of you who know Him intimately know this. Yet often, for the rest of us, He is our second or third priority. We think, “once I get my desk work done, or finish all my calls then I will spend time reading my Bible,” and it never or seldom happens. How about saying I will read my Bible first and then trust Him to Help me with my desk work or finish my phone calls? Make faith an adventure, “trust (is twin to obeying) the Lord and do not lean on your own understanding” (Pro. 3:5&6). My time to read, as I’ve shared, is my lunchtime. Sometimes, lunch is at 5:00 pm, but regardless of when I eat lunch, that is my time to be with Him. I encourage you to find a time that works for you, keep it, and be prepared to be tested. The testing again is the purification process, seeing if we meant what we told Him. Remember, anything worth anything requires commitment and effort, and our faith is the most precious and important of anything we have.
Life hands us many opportunities to exercise our faith, but we only see the trial (the problem), not the opportunity given to us through the trial to trust Him. Often, our trials feel like threats to our security or hindrances to our success. Read the story of Joseph or David. All their “hindrances” prepared them to rule in fear of God. How many other stories in the Old Testament are there like this? They all start as seemingly insurmountable problems, but victory was gained because God was trusted. Let’s use a modern example of needing/wanting a car, but not any car, a nice one. If I could drive that car, that would be so cool. It becomes such a passion that it rules over our Bible study time; we can’t think of anything else. Why do we not maintain our time with the Lord, trusting Him, and then go with Him shopping for a car, making it an adventure (or a home, or furniture or clothing, etc.)? I have bought about 21 vehicles, mostly for the business, but three were for my wife (we’ve been married 43 yrs.), and 4 for my daughters (2 each, replacing the ones they crashed). However, when buying these vehicles, I considered each time an adventure and prayed, trusting the Lord to lead me to each vehicle.
Therefore, each vehicle has a story of God’s faithfulness (even the totaled two). This is what we cheat ourselves out of when we don’t trust the Lord.
In the Old Testament, they did the same thing; they built altars to the Lord after an act of God’s faithfulness to remind them and to be able to pass the story to their children.
About me: Since my youth, I’ve craved a Christian dad to talk to about the Lord. My dad was good; I knew he loved me. This, in turn, allowed me to believe that God loved me, so when God called me in my youth, I could believe His love because of my dad’s example. This is the most important role a father plays in the life of his children: to truly love his children. This makes it much easier for the children to believe God loves them. So many of us struggle with God loving us. Though we confess it with our mouths, getting what we confess into our hearts takes years of trial. A loving father shortcuts all these trials.
Assurance, self-worth, and security come from knowing your Father loves you, which transfers over to God as you come to know Him. It does not start at 100%, but the roads have been laid in our hearts for confession of faith, and they deepen as we press into the Lord. We have the confidence to press into Him. Many lack that confidence and “wander in the desert for years of their life.”
So what happens if you were not raised by a dad who visibly showed his love? Some men, or men in specific cultures, have difficulty showing affection; it DOES NOT MEAN THAT THEY DO NOT LOVE YOU. I am Hispanic by nature, and it is common in my culture to show love, anger, kindness, hug each other, etc., all the human emotions. A close friend of mine is English and Irish; his culture is more reserved. His dad was reserved in showing love, and he hardly got hugged as a boy. So, it was a greater leap of faith for him to believe God loved him. I have found this true of many believers and find it to be the root cause for many of us struggling with devotional time with the Lord.
God’s plan of loving us starts with our Father’s love and extends to God’s love. A mother’s love is critical as well. However, the Father’s role is to represent The Lord as the authority figure in the home. It’s much like a relay race where one runner passes the baton to the other runner. We are under our Father’s tutorage, and then there comes a point when God starts to call us unto Himself. The smoothness of the transition is initially based on how good a job the Father did. Such is the example of the passing of his love for his children to God, as now his instruction is tapering down, and God’s is beginning. So now, as an adult lacking this, you hear an encouraging message in church but still struggle to believe that God truly loves you with all your faults and issues. Because of that, it’s hard for us to sit and read the Bible.
Despite our society’s indulgence in praising itself, true self-worth cannot be produced by the self. It is external and formed in childhood by those of your family who love you. Even being conceited is a cover-up for insecurity. To the degree a person is stuck on themselves is to the degree they are insecure and maybe even hate themselves. Security and feeling good about oneself happen when God’s ways are followed.
That’s the way God structured life and why He instituted sex only in marriage so that the children are born into an environment of love and see and feel family life. Fortunately, there is God’s Word for those lacking security and confidence. It is very powerful when one approaches it in humility and need. It is such a blessing. Also unique to our time is a program called The Chosen. It does an excellent job of showing Christ’s love for us, and combined with reading God’s Word, it becomes a powerful and effective tool to put the pieces of your heart back together. Also, and this is a must, look up Bible verses and memorize them, like the ones I use in all the Vida’s. There is no greater verse for security than John 3:16.
John 3:16-18
For God So Loved the World
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but for the world to be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
In place of “the world,” add your name. And if He gave His Son for us, do you not think we are super special? To appreciate this verse, think of a time in your life when you did not want to do something, but you did it because of your love for that person. That is the beginning of understanding this verse if you can understand it.
Spend time memorizing this verse and others I share, and as you do, insecurity, inferiority, low self-esteem, etc., all these dark shadows will begin to fade in the light of knowing you’re loved. As that happens, your “shoes for battle” will “fit better,” you will hold your ground and even take the ground as a harmony of oneness develops between you and The Lord. Savage Garden has a famous song where she says, “I’m melting into you.” That’s the goal.
Lord,
Thank you for this simple yet profound teaching. Truly understanding your love for us will transform us. It will take time and, at times, harsh trials that seem to say just the opposite of love; we will suffer, but let us be wise and understanding and not let the lies of the enemy convince us otherwise. The wise among us will consider and read the accounts of your Crucifixion and realize that it was your love for us that put you up on that Cross. You could have spoken a word at any time and ended it all, “but like a lamb to the slaughter you uttered not a word.”
Isaiah 53:4-7
Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds, we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth (a prophecy by Isaiah the prophet about 700 years before Christ, before Crucifixion was ever known as a means of death).
Thank you, Father, for this teaching,
Your son by Grace,
Arthur