The Breastplate of Righteousness

Ephesians 6:14b 
'...with the breastplate of righteousness in place'

http://www.medieval-chain-mail-armor.com/wearable
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This is the second piece of Armour which we are commanded to wear: The Breastplate of righteousness. So, what is Righteousness?

One Dictionary I looked up said that Righteousness means Morally upright; without guilt or sin. Righteousness is being Right with God, and Sin is disobedience to God and takes us out of a positive relationship with Him, so righteousness must be the opposite - being godly and holy. But we also know that we are all sinful and all deserve hell (Romans 3:23) so how can we be righteous? We can only be righteous through Jesus. He died and paid the penalty for our sin (which is death) so now (If you  have repented and believe - If your a Christian) you are righteous. 

But this is also a command. we are to put the breastplate of righteousness in place. We must actively be working to fight sin in our lives and be holy. We must repent of our sin each day and work hard to do good instead of evil.  If you do this then you have the breastplate of righteousness and must continue to do so. The breastplate was the central piece of armour, that covered the heart and all the vital organs and it also covered the back. Righteousness is one of our main defences against Satan's attacks. It means that when we are accused falsely of sin, our lives are proof that we did not do it. It means that when Satan sends guilt and tries to bring us down, we can stand firm because we know that Jesus has taken away our sin and made us righteous through himself - that we are forgiven and free from slavery in Sin and Death.


Proverbs 14:34
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

Belt of Truth

'Ephesians 6:14 
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist...'

This is the first piece of armour which is outlined. The Belt of Truth. This outlines our need to be truthful in all we do, and not lie. we know that God is truthful (John 14:6, Romans 3:4), while satan is the father of lies (John 8:44) - and as christians we are children of God (1 John 3:2), not slaves to sin anymore (Romans 6:20): thus we must be honest and truthful.


The belt of the roman soldier was where the sword was held. We hear later that the sword we have is the word of God. We must be truthful so that when we share the gospel (our only weapon) we are trustworthy and people will listen. If you don't show your salvation through your life, why would anyone listen to what you say?


Sorry for not posting much, life has been hectic recently, I'm hoping to pick it up soon though :) 


God Bless,
Nat

The Armour of God, Part 1

^{Ephesians 6:11-13
11} Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. ¹² For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. ¹³ Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.


This is the explanation for the following posts about the armour of God. 
Why should we put on this armour? 
1. To take your stand against satan's schemes. Satan is at work in the world and he is seeking to destroy God's people. He will take every opportunity to hurt us and have us persecuted. We need to have the 'armour of God' so we can stand against that, so we can trust God in persecution and be confident of his salvation, and have defence against those who persecute us. We also have defence against temptation when Satan throws it at us. In saying this though, Satan cannot do anything without God's permission (Job 1) and we will not be tempted beyond what we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13)
2. We don't fight people, we fight Satan, and the only way to fight him is to obey God and to be godly. We do this by donning the armour of God and being truthful, righteous and other mentioned things. Satan's attacks are anything which distract us from God, such as persecution or temptation
3. So we can stand firm and when we are finished, keep standing. So that when we are attacked we can persevere in the faith, not give up and at the end still be standing, still be a christian and still have eternal salvation through Christ and the certain hope of heaven and so that we can fight temptation and not give in, not sin.

Humility

1 Peter 5:6-7
⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.


So we had a sermon on this Sunday morning, and it was extremely encouraging, so I thought I would share a few points from it:


 We have to actively be humbling ourselves before God. He is all powerful, the creator of the universe, worthy of all praise and glory. We were created for his glory and must be humble, pointing to him, not ourselves. We need to work to serve God.


 How can we do this? One way of humbling ourselves is to cast our anxieties on God - tell him our troubles and trust him to deal with them in his perfect timing (Psalm 55:23). Don't be anxious, but pray about your problems (Philippians 4:6-7) and trust God to deal with them - he is all powerful and he is in control, trust him! He works all things for his glory and for the good of his people (meaning our sanctification or to grow us in godliness).


There was WAY more then that in the sermon, and I really encourage you to look it up:


http://www.apshpc.org.au/resources/audio-sermons/audio/218-to-him-be-the-dominion-part-1.html

A change

Alright, so recently I've been working on a blog called Christian Oasis, and my goal was to explore a few verses of the bible every day in depth. I have enjoyed doing it (only don't a few posts) but am realising that I can't sustain that sort of commitment, so I have decided to make a change to how I blog on this blog - I will hopefully be doing a short paragraph or two from something that I have been learning from reading the bible each day. I'm going into Year 11 soon, so life will get hectic and I may not be able to sustain that level of commitment, but I hope to be blogging most days. I'm open to any thoughts or ideas which you may have, and thanks for reading the blog :D


Nat