Put on that armor

God’s way is perfect. All the Lord’s promises prove true. He is a shield for all who look to him for protection. For who is God except the Lord? Who but our God is a solid rock? God arms me with strength,
and he makes my way perfect. You have made a wide path for my feet to keep them from slipping. (Psalm 18:30-32, 36 NLT)

I have to ask - what 'way' have you chosen in life? Has it always been the 'right' way? Or have you been like me, choosing the 'right' way most of the time, but still finding the 'wrong' way kind of like a menacing 'pusher of buttons' on occasion? You do everything you can to avoid having those buttons pushed, but there are just times when there is no resisting in your own power and that is what you have been leaning on way too much.

God's protection is there for us, but we choose to lean on our own resistance way too frequently. We think we have it 'handled', but don't even realize how futile that self-determination really proves to be in the end. The sooner we realize 'self-determination' isn't really power to resist our 'buttons' getting pushed, the quicker we will turn to God as our strength and protector. We aren't 'fully armed' to resist out enemy until we lay down our 'weapons of resistance' and take up his!

He is the one who arms us with strength and makes our way perfect. He is the one who replaces self-determination with power to resist the pull of sin. We aren't going to find that resistance within ourselves because there is a part of us that thinks we've got this. Until we realize we don't have it, we won't seek any other help outside of our own self-will. 

The full armor of God isn't just to make us look good - it is what we need to resist what makes us look very, very bad! The Word of God spoken when sin attempts to dupe us with its lies doesn't make us just look strong, it is strength! The righteousness of God protecting our hearts is more than a protection for our physical heart - it protects us in the areas of our will, emotions, and thought life - the very inroad our enemy utilizes so frequently to get us to do things on our own.

We might not think the armor of God is essential - try living a day without it! Try resisting sin's pull on your own and see how far that gets you. Sure, you may do fine for a day or two, but eventually that path will lead to some pretty gnarly compromises that you never intended to make, but you didn't have the 'natural strength' to resist. God's equipping is always stronger than any temptation - we just need to learn to use the armor the way it was intended - fully worn, frequently put into use, and with each piece doing what our own defenses cannot. Just sayin!