Devotional For Men

Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God's righteousness.

Ephesians 6:14, NLT

This well-known passage on the armor of God (Eph. 6:10-17) has a great deal to teach us about the spiritual resources God supplies for our daily living. Some of these you will read about in other devotions in this series. This time, our focus will be on tactics. In particular, Paul uses the term "stand" in verses 11, 13, and 14. We are to "stand firm," remain "standing firm," and "stand our ground." What does it mean to fight while standing our ground? Roman soldiers had an interesting and deadly concept of personal space. Their personal space was Roman space. They were trained to defend an area around them with their lives. Once they took ground, they held it. In their time, they were considered practically invincible warriors in open combat. They fought with discipline, order, and precision. Their primary vulnerability was not to enemies who meet them as equals but to those who used what we now call guerilla tactics. In guerilla warfare, one side is obvious; the other is hidden. One side fights in the open; the other uses deception and surprise attacks. Guerilla tactics are not designed to defeat the enemy but to demoralize and destroy him. Spiritual warfare is guerilla warfare. In fact, it is a life-and-death struggle with spiritual terrorism. Note Paul's point in verse 12, "For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places." In this scenario, we're not the guerillas; we're the army in uniform. We don't always recognize the devil or his schemes. He knows exactly who we are. He wants to stay under cover and destroy us. We must stand our ground. So, how do we stand our ground? We wear and use the spiritual equipment God provides. We may not be able to see the enemy, but God does. Our mission isn't to defeat the devil. That happened at the cross when Jesus won the decisive victory (see Colossians 2:13-15) over the "spiritual rulers and authorities." Our mission is to obey the orders of our Captain Jesus Christ. For us, victory is defined by faithfulness and daily dependence on God’s grace.