THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT

BE STRONG SERIES

Ephesians 6:17 Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.18 Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.

I am a big football fan. My favorite teams have a strong defense, yet if their offense is not good, they usually do not win. If the offense is poor, the team will spend most of the game on defense, and eventually, the defense will wear out, and the opponent will score. In football, the helmet is the most essential part of the uniform, protecting the head. The sport is controversial because of the number of people having concussions, and so new helmets have been designed for better protection.

As Christians, our helmet is salvation; our opponent will attack us with lies, but because we are saved, we are protected through our faith in Jesus Christ. We once had no helmet, so the enemy would get in our heads, and we could do nothing about it. In Christ, we have authority over the enemy. He is a defeated foe, so we don’t have to listen when he tries to get in our heads. The Bible says we can cast down imaginations (2 Cor. 10:5), we can resist the enemy by submitting to God, and he will flee from us (James 4:7). To submit to God means to stand on the Truth of His Word against the darts of lies he has thrown at us. It is not just our helmet on our heads to protect us from harm; we have a sword to drive the enemy back and put him in his place. We have already won; the game is over; the devil should not even be on the field. Our battle is not to win or lose but to enforce our victory in Christ.

Even though we have much more defensive gear than offensive weapons, all we need is the Sword, for the enemy cannot stand against Truth. The enemy works through people, but as we learned in Ephesians 6:12, we don’t fight flesh with flesh, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of Truth, when spoken goes into the heart of man as seen in Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.”

The key to staying strong in the Spirit is praying in the Spirit, as verse 18 says on every occasion. We are not just praying for ourselves but, as the rest of the verse says, for all believers everywhere. Speaking in tongues is a heavenly language; it is praying the perfect will of God. This gift has been given to us to remain strong in the Lord. We can become quickly weary (Isaiah 40:31) and want to give up; tongues keep us built up, and the gift empowers us for effective ministry. Only through the Holy Spirit can God touch people, so we must be continuously filled with the Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues to be agents of God on earth.