Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

For me one of the most important pieces of our armour is the shield of faith. Although the armour is a metaphor of how we should think, believe and behave, it is imperative that we exercise our faith in the things we read and digest. The reason we need to read and re-read the word over and over again is the simple fact that we forget things very easily. And so we are encouraged to place the most potent weapon we have in the deepest recesses of our minds.  But we can only do this if we believe the word or better still believe that the author of the word truly has our best interest at heart. The apostle Paul uses the analogy of the armour to get us to think strategically. Our enemy uses his strategies to get us to doubt the word. He questions the authenticity of word and thereby questions the author, God. He says things like: did God really say that? (Genesis 3:1), throw yourself down from the rooftop, you know the angels will save you (Luke 4:9), and finally, why are you pressing through this crowd to touch Jesus, don’t you know that you are unclean? (Luke 8:43ff).

By picking up the shield of faith, we are able to see miraculous happenings in our lives. Paul reminds that the shield is used to deflect the fiery darts of the enemy. These darts are designed to cause maximum pain to your belief system. Once punctured your whole belief system will quickly deflate and like a car with punctured tyres you will become totally stranded and completely immobile.

Finally by taking up the shield of faith, you are able to use the sword correctly. How do these work together you may ask? The shield is the defensive weapon whilst the sword or the word is the offensive weapon. The shield deflects while the sword punctures through the falseness that the enemy presents. And so, by standing behind the shield we protect our belief system and by speaking the word we are re-iterating what the author of creation already declared. By lifting up this barrier we can now declare that we are MORE THAN CONQUORERS! What a fantastic piece of weaponry we have at our disposal! Well go ahead and use it!! have a read of 2Kings 6:15-20 and pray the prayer of Elisha!