Faith & Fire Extinguishers

…take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. –Ephesians 6:16 NIV

Experienced any fiery darts lately? Harsh self-accusations? Piercing criticisms? Many of these arrows carry 10% truth in their tips, or they wouldn’t hurt so much. In ancient warfare, flaming arrows were aimed at the wooden shields of enemies, rendering this protection worthless. But as Christians, we each have a supernatural shield of faith as our first line of defense. We need to raise this armor up in response to the cruel darts with declarations of truth, such as “God loves me ‘with an everlasting love’” (Jeremiah 31:3 NIV) or, “There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1 NIV). But at times, our faith is too weak to raise the shield and declare the truth found in the Bible against the accusation coming at us. At such times, we must remember that we’ve also been given an impermeable breastplate (Ephesians 6:14 NIV) to save us! It represents Christ’s righteousness. We may deserve the cruel dart, but Jesus does not. We are now clothed in HIS righteousness! God protects our hearts from the cruelty of those who are out to steal our joy, love, freedom, and life. Our striving to be perfect won’t protect us, but being wrapped in Christ’s righteousness will keep us safe!