(Submitted By
Kerry Patton)
“…in addition to
all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish
all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” Ephesians 6:16
It was the summer of 1984 and I
was driving my Chevrolet Monte Carlo down Hwy 6 toward College Station,
Texas. It was a beautiful night. I had my windows down and my music turned
up. My left arm was resting on the sill
of the open window and I drove with the right.
I remember feeling absolutely free.
The wind was in my hair and the open road was in front of me.
Suddenly, an oncoming car picked
up a rather large stone (by which I mean, it was considerably larger than a
pebble) and hurled it into my open window past me in the opposite direction,
missing my head by mere inches. The
stone’s momentum, combined with that of my own car caused the rock to crash off
the rear window of my car and be hurled past my head on the other side where it
bounced off the inside of the windshield and finally came to rest in the back
seat!
Now, I’m not suggesting that this
stone would have taken out Goliath.
However, I am convinced that had it hit me, I might have lost control of
the car and been severely injured or even killed. Thankful that I was uninjured, I quickly rolled
up the windows and made a firm decision that driving unprotected with my
windows down was not in my best interests!
I needed a shield to protect
me…even from things that I might not see coming.
A Shield…of Faith?
In Ephesians 6, the Apostle Paul
was using the battle dress of a Roman soldier to communicate spiritual
readiness for the spiritual battles that we face in life. Upon this canvass, he paints an image
familiar to his contemporaries: The buckler or shield. This vital piece of armor was carried to
deflect and defend against deadly blows of the enemy. For his illustration Paul chooses a peculiar
substance for his shield however: Faith.
A shield…of faith?
One would likely never enter an
earthly battlefield simply covered in faith.
But we remember that the enemies Paul is warning of are not flesh and
bone, but spiritual. Their attacks are
not sharpened steel, but of temptation, distractions, doubts, and conflicts of
the mind and spirit. Against these, no
earthly buckler can defend! Faith is our
defense!
But what is faith, and where do we
get it?
Romans 10:17 reads: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of
Christ.” Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped
for, the conviction of things not seen.”
I once heard it explained this
way: We have faith…seeing in the scriptures what God said He would do, and
witnessing in the same that God did what He said he was going to do. Further, we continue in faith…seeing in the
scriptures that God has said He will do things He has not yet done. By faith,
we believe confidently that He will do what he has said he will do…because of
what He has already done.
We have faith in God. It is upon this faith that all those
believers who have gone on before us stand firm. They have witnessed and testify of the
faithfulness, love, and saving power of God.
It is they to whom Paul refers as that “great cloud of witnesses” who
compel us to lay off every encumbrance and run the race set before us!
Their testimony allows us to take
up the shield of faith ourselves and know that the same spirit that raised
Christ Jesus dwells in us also. As the
spirit of God in Christ enabled Christ to withstand and resist the attacks of
the forces of darkness, that same spirit enables us to do the same. We have a shield of faith!!
Scripture to claim:
“for truly I say to you, if you have faith the
size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to
there,' and it will move ; and nothing will be impossible to you.” Matthew
17:20b
