Spiritual Warfare, Part 5
The Breastplate of Righteousness
Hold to Christ’s Teaching, Walk in His Protection, Live in His Blessing
The Armor of God enables you to stand against the devil’s schemes because the weapons we wield have supernatural power to demolish strongholds and keep your heart protected!
“Putting on The Breastplate of Righteousness”
Satan’s name comes from the Greek word Satanas, which means “adversary.” The Bible also refers to Satan with the word diabolos (translated “devil”), which means “slanderous or accusing falsely.”
His name is a clue to one of his Key Schemes. He accuses us, creating legitimate and/or false guilt to keep us discouraged. Satan loves to make us feel inadequate in our Christian walk, often preventing us from growing spiritually, thus diminishing or even eliminating our Kingdom effectiveness.
Let’s review some examples from Chapter 3 of my book Stand Firm with God’s Power in Business:
• Satan does his best to find something he can make us feel guilty about because he knows that a Christian who feels guilty is discouraged and ineffective.
• Satan uses accusations to destroy trust and unity in relationships – especially in churches, families and the Body of Christ.
• Satan will jump at any opportunity to convince us to focus on the guilt our failures produce instead of Christ’s redeeming work of grace at the cross.
How do we defend ourselves against these schemes? With the Breastplate of Righteousness! First, let’s look at the function of a breastplate:
“The breastplate was a central part of the Roman soldier’s armor—it provided protection for the torso, which contains vital organs like the heart, lungs and so on. Without a breastplate, a soldier would be asking for death, as any attack could instantly become fatal. With a sturdy breastplate, the very same attacks become ineffective and useless, as blows glance off the armor. Without righteousness, we leave ourselves open to almost certain death. With righteousness—just as with a breastplate—the otherwise fatal attacks of our enemy are thwarted.”
There are two forms of righteousness the Bible refers to:
A. Imputed righteousness is a free gift from Christ to those who receive Him into their life as Savior and Lord, asking forgiveness for their sins and accepting God’s free gift of Christ’s righteousness. This righteousness is accredited to them through His death on the cross where He paid the penalty for their sins. As a result of this gift, you are righteous in God’s eyes. Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness (Romans 4:4-5). This is a singular event in your life, and it NEVER changes. Once you become a child of God, the penalty for your sins (past, present and future) is paid for and you are made righteous in God’s eyes.
B. Imparted righteousness is a process (referred to as sanctification) of learning how to live in your earthly body. This is accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit living in you. As you walk in the Spirit, Christ’s righteousness is imparted to you. In other words, you are taught how to live righteously every day of your life through the power of Christ inside you! This is a continuous process that enables you to live more and more like Christ daily as you ask God to help you.
Knowing how to cope with Satan’s schemes involves:
1. Renewing your mind with truth by using the Action Plan in Chapter 4 of my book (free download). This results in removing the lies that Satan and the world have programmed into you and replacing them with the truth about reality as found in the Bible (the way things actually are versus the way you think they are or the way Satan wants you to believe they are). Some verses to help you do that are:
2. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (Romans 12:2).
*All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).
*My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:2-3).
3. Believing that you can live as Jesus did (1 John 2:6) on this earth by trusting Christ to render your flesh powerless and by setting your mind (making a permanent decision) to walk everyday under the influence, power, and leading of the Spirit of God living in you.
4. Committing to the spiritual growth process that follows. You now know that godliness is attainable! How do you know? The Bible tells you so. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness (2 Peter 1:5-6).
As you go through the sanctification process, remember that only God can make you godly or holy. You cannot get up in the morning and decide to be more godly. Godliness is a work of God. “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin” (Matthew 6:28b NKJV). Jesus is telling us that only God makes things grow and the Apostle Paul confirms this: I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow (1 Corinthians 3:6-8).
Our job is to cooperate with Him by believing daily that He is with us and assisting us. Jesus said, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one He has sent” (John 6:29). God designed it this way so you will seek Him, stay humble, and not become prideful. We can achieve holiness because we have a “new nature,” therefore we have the ability to make the right choices. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life Romans 6:22).
The Apostle John also instructs us in this regard as he gives us guidelines as to who the children of God really are. We know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commands. Whoever says, “I know Him,” but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did (1 John 2:3-6).
Satan’s Schemes to Derail Your Sanctification Process
Satan will attack you with accusations of how bad or weak a person you are because you continue to sin after becoming a born again Christian. He will convince you that there is no hope of you ever attaining godliness and tell you to give up and stop pretending to be a Christian. You will likely feel grieved in your soul, because this is contrary to how God sees you. Despite your failures, God’s Spirit still lives within you. With love, the Spirit gently convicts you of your sin and you will want to stop sinning because you want to please and serve God.
But as soon as you are convicted by the Holy Spirit, Satan turns up the heat. He continues to accuse you of being a bad person encouraging you to question whether you are really a Christian. This is easy for Satan to do because he knows that you have to go through a sanctification process and that you will continue to sin, even though you are sinning less than you used to because you are learning to “walk in the spirit” and “put on your new nature.”
Satan has already convinced millions of Christians that becoming godly is impossible, and these people will try to discourage you from trying. They support Satan’s lie. This is very bad for the Body of Christ, because people will not attempt to achieve something they believe to be impossible. And that is why the forces of darkness are currently winning the war in the Body of Christ. If God says it’s possible, then it is possible! So choose to believe Him and stand on His truth when Satan and his followers try to discourage you and persuade you otherwise.
My wife and I have a few friends who have divorced their spouses and married other people. Over the years we tried to counsel them not to do it, but they had their minds set on what their flesh desired, instead of God’s word. They justified their sin with a whole list of rationalizations provided by the enemy and proceeded with their divorces. Several years afterward, most of them confided in me that they had made a big mistake and wished they hadn’t done it. They explained they still loved their first spouse. They also confessed that their relationships with their children and old friends were not the same and they should have listened to counsel.
Nevertheless, I understand there are situations which leave a spouse no other options but divorce. But I believe most divorces are caused by Satan manipulating couples who are not putting on the Armor of God and trusting Him to restore their relationship. My wife and I trusted God, and we have been married for over fifty years.
I once attended a team building workshop, where they taught us that building a team is a growth process. One of the phases in this process is called the “storming phase.” During this phase there is a lot of conflict and stress as the members learn to communicate better, work together effectively, and trust each other at a deeper level. This is a perfectly normal phase in the development of a team, but it is needful and should be expected. It’s important for team members to not get discouraged and give up on each other. They need to persevere, and the members will come together as a team.
Likewise, husbands and wives must learn to function as a team. The Bible says, the two will become one (Matthew 19:5)! So be patient with your spouse (well, be patient with everyone, but especially your spouse) and set your minds on working together through the “storming phase.” Remember that your struggle is not against flesh and blood (your spouse), but rather against Satan and His schemes.
I can personally testify to the importance of learning this reality. In early 1970, the enemy convinced me that I didn’t love my wife and that our marriage was hopeless. I had no peace. Life was not going well with us at all. So I left her and the boys to find “happiness.” The third night I was gone, the Lord spoke to me: “It is time for you to decide if you are going to serve Me or not.” I recognized His voice and immediately called Ree Ann and asked her if I could come back. She graciously and immediately said yes.
Although I had not gone to church for several years, as soon as I got home I picked up the Bible my father had given me as a child and began searching for verses concerning “peace.” One verse jumped off the page at me: If you raise up your family in the way of the Lord, you shall have peace. If one thing was lacking in my family at that point, it was peace. I knew I had to make some changes. I decided to start going to church again and have done so ever since. Amazingly, I have never been able to find that verse again and honestly don’t know if it was really there or if the Holy Spirit just had me see a verse that way. This may sound strange to you, but it is true.
Looking back to that time, I am amazed at just how good Satan is at his lies and deception. Ree Ann was, is, and always will be “the love of my life.” And I am very grateful that God got us safely through that period of darkness. Our love for one another was restored and we learned to work together as a team. Since then, we have prospered in every way – spiritually, emotionally, financially, and relationally – as we worked side by side in the business domain.
In 2009, I was meeting with a senior level manager who had been a Christian all his life. He held positions in senior-level management and leadership – in both business and religious non-profit organizations. He taught adult Sunday School for several years. I would rank him in the top 1% of gifted leaders/managers that I have known. About twenty years prior to our meeting, he was involved in an affair that led to him losing a job in one of the fastest growing successful companies in America. He repented to his wife and God and continued with a series of successful jobs, but his success was never quite the same.
Over the years he began to question if the Apostle Paul’s teaching on righteousness was attainable. And his relationship with his wife drifted apart. When I met with him in 2009 we were discussing the topic of the holiness of the believer. Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:3-6 were a key part of that discussion: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person — such a person is an idolater — has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.”
“That is not possible!” he declared to me. I asked him if he thought God would ask us to do something that was not possible. He said, “Well, just look around you in Christianity! There is evidence everywhere that it is not possible.” I could see that Satan had won the war with him. We talked some more and I tried to reason with him but he did not listen. In 2012, he divorced his wife and the following year, married another woman. Since 2009, he has worked at nothing but odd jobs – every one of them far beneath his former successes.
You see, God’s love is unconditional but His blessings under the Covenant Promise are not. Like any corporate culture, the Kingdom Culture rewards people who comply with its ways, “All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God – However, if you do not obey the Lord your God…all these curses will come on you and overtake you” (Deuteronomy 28:2 and 15).
Standing Firm After Putting on Your Breastplate of Righteousness
The Key
“IT IS WRITTEN”
Jesus Christ, King of God’s Kingdom
After 40 years of business consulting, I can most assuredly tell you that people will not do something they believe to be impossible! Satan is counting on that and he will do anything to make you believe God’s promises are not true.
Satan’s core strategy, when it comes to righteousness and holiness, is to get you to believe that achieving them is impossible. Believing this leads to a decline in your obedience to God and a limit to His blessing in your life.
If you persevere, you will sin less and less, and intentional sin becomes very infrequent. When Satan hounds you with accusations and temptation, quote Scriptures to him, saying, “Satan, it is written!” Then stand firm in this truth: “Christ’s righteousness has been credited to me. Those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (see Romans 5:17).
Christ’s righteousness is being imparted to us as we learn to walk as He walked. God is not finished with us yet. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law (works), Christ died for nothing” (Galatians 2:20-21)!
Therefore, it is possible to live a righteous life! To defeat the forces of darkness, believe that God’s wisdom will work in your life. Keep your relationship with Christ healthy by applying these truths daily. To stand firm when Satan attacks you, the first thing you need to do is to make sure you know you are not guilty.
So when you sin, confess your sin to God immediately (1 John 1:9). Once you have done that, He is faithful and just to forgive your sin. Now you can know you are in right standing with Christ. Keep your mind set on what the Spirit desires so you disobey God less frequently. When you do disobey, follow the process above and reset your mind on what the Spirit desires. Then send Satan packing!
When the devil tempted Christ in Luke 4:1-13, Christ had His mind set on what His Father desired, so He said “No” to Satan after each of the devil’s efforts to appeal to Christ’s human nature. To send Satan packing, Christ ALWAYS used Scripture, and ONLY Scripture. You can – and MUST – do the same in order to win the battle with Satan!
Following are a few keys to standing firm that you also can use on a daily basis:
1. Overcoming the temptation to sin. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). “…Do not give the devil a foothold (Ephesians 4:27).
2. Disregard any spirit or person who tells you godliness is not attainable. But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do (1 Peter 1:15).
3. Confess your sin to God. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
4. Set your mind on what the Spirit desires (Romans 8:5) and walk in the Spirit in your new nature.
5. “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things” (Philippians 4:4-8).
Like Christ, stand your ground with Scripture! Christ knew Satan feared God the Father and that Satan would give up and go away if He had faith in God’s Word. “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13).
Recall that sanctification is a lifelong process, not an event, so keep at it. As you continue obeying God’s Word, you will develop judgment on how to take your stand against the devil’s schemes and successfully complete the process in 2 Peter 1:5-9!
When Satan comes at you with temptation or accusations for sins you have already asked God to forgive, making you feel guilty because of your day-to-day mistakes, quote Scripture to him and say, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazarus, go away Satan. Christ died on the Cross for my mistakes, and by the way, God gives me His Grace when I make mistakes. He has forgiven me for that – and He isn’t finished with me yet!”
Keys to the Kingdom
So, how does one learn the fundamental truth about God and His Son?
Through the Holy Spirit who teaches us as we read the Word of God.
In dealing with the spiritual forces, you need to know, believe and live by “the truth”!
“All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:” Deuteronomy 8:2
A Recommended Action Plan –
A Process, not an Event
Following is an action plan to help put on the Belt of Truth:
1. Read the Bible like it means just what it says, and believe it even if you don’t understand it yet.
2. Load Bible software on your computer and research your questions about life and business to help you define reality and make sound decisions.
3. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to the truth. His leading may include Bible passages to read, a church to attend, people to talk to, books to read, etc. Make the Bible your priority – it is the foundation for learning Truth.
4. Memorize key verses in the Bible, even if it is only a verse or two at a time.
5. Intentionally set your mind on what the Spirit desires by obeying the truth and basing your decisions on reality.
6. Seek His counsel continuously.
7. Apply His truth daily in thoughts, decisions, and actions.
8. Do not allow Satan to derail you from this process!
9. Quote the Bible and command the forces of darkness, in the name of Jesus, to leave you!
10. Pray to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ daily as you live your life!
Closing Comments
What is your belief system about your life, behavior, and faithfulness to obey Christ’s mission to “make disciples …teaching them to obey everything I have commanded“?
Are you living by His teachings and obeying them?
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
Next, we will examine how to “put on the Armor of God” with the The Gospel of Peace.
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*Much of the information in this BobChats is taken from my book, STAND FIRM WITH GOD’S POWER IN BUSINESS.
