Being Strong in the Lord

In Ephesians 6:10-18 we're encouraged to 'be strong in the Lord and the power of His might' (vs 10). Christians need to pause right there and meditate on this verse for a moment.

If we're admonished to be strong in the Lord, then we have a choice to 'be strong' or not to be strong. Otherwise, we wouldn't be encouraged by God to 'be strong'. This means there will be times of trial when we have a choice to either 'be strong in the Lord' and by implication stand victorious, or not be strong and suffer defeat.

People may say, "Well you don't know what I've been through. If you knew what I've been through you wouldn't be saying 'be strong'." They'd be right; we don't know what others may be going through. But God knows what they've been through and God's the answer to their situation- "Be strong in me and the power of my might."

God doesn't say to be strong in your might or to be strong in your pastor's might. He says to be strong in His might. Instead of thinking, "Look what I've been through, I’m just struggling to keep my head above the water" we need to be thinking "I know I can't do this in my might, I may as well be strong in the Lord!"

Once we've settled in our hearts that we're going to be strong in our God and the power of His might, then we need to understand what it means to be strong in the Lord.

The scripture says to be 'strong in the Lord' is to put on the full armour of God. Armour is a metaphor for those things we use to protect ourselves. In this case, God is saying: "I have already won a mighty victory for you, now you are to stand firm in that victory by putting on and utilising the armour I've given you."

In 1 Samuel 17: 32-40 we read that when David was preparing to defend Israel's armies from the threat of Goliath, King Saul tried to put his armour on David. However, David protested saying, "I haven't tested this armour." David may have been respectfully saying, "This armour hasn't done you much good, what makes you think it will work for me!"

In the natural, we all have 'armour'. Our armour is the beliefs, habits, emotions and strategies that we have developed to protect ourselves. However, our armour is not God's armour. Our armour can include some very fleshly, self-righteous and self-centred strategies.

Being dogmatic and having to 'be right' is often a way of self-validation which is used as a strategy to compensate for emotional and spiritual insecurity. Alternatively, being guarded and not letting people get close to you can also be a defensive armour to protect our vulnerabilities.

Becoming offended and then rationalising offence is a classic fleshly strategy. How can you be offended unless you have spiritual pride? It's impossible. We tend to get offended when people, knowingly or unknowingly, attack our sense of self or self-righteousness. Then to justify offence, we project the blame onto the person who has hurt us and in doing so dig our self-righteous hole even deeper.

Some behaviours appear spiritual but are very fleshly. Such as playing the victim card by looking for sympathy. Or, making people feel guilty or responsible for your condition. When done subtly by an experienced practitioner, making others feel guilty is nothing more than Christian lingo acting as a veneer for devilish behaviour.

We laugh at popular TV sit-coms, such as Everyone Loves Raymond where mothers-in-law try and manipulate their sons by a suite of control strategies. These tactics are so blatant they make us laugh. We laugh because we know it's true! In real life, I've seen many families torn apart by manipulative spouses and in-laws trying to gain control of others by being 'spiritual'.

It may seem too obvious to say, but our fleshy defensive weapons are not God's weapons. His weapons are effective against spiritual forces. Our weapons usually make things worse. At the very least they hinder God working through us. Satan will try and get us to put on fleshly armour because it's not effective against him. It's worse than not effective - it's playing Satan's game by Satan's rules!

The Bible lists God's armour in Ephesians 6. Let's not get too hung up on the specific uses of Roman armour- that misses the point. In 1 Thessalonians 5:8, Paul uses a different list of Roman armour. God didn't shape his armour to precisely fit each specific apparatus used by the Roman army. He is merely making the point that His spiritual armour is intended for us to use to defend our position in Christ.

With that in mind, it can be helpful to look at God's actual spiritual armour. Ephesians 6:10-17 lists:

☐ Truth

☐ Righteousness

☐ The foundation of the Gospel of Peace (or grace)

☐ Faith (above, or covering all)

☐ Salvation

☐ The Word of God (the spoken 'rhema' Word of God' which is the Spirit's offensive weapon)

Also, 1 Thessalonians 5:8 adds:

☐ Love

☐ 'Salvation', here clarified as the hope or certainty of our ultimate victory.

Being 'strong in the Lord and the power of His might' involves developing our faith in these spiritual truths and learning how to use them in prayer and against the enemy.

Written by Grant Peterson