Ephesians 6:13-15

"Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace."

Taking a step back, I first see that verses 10-13 talk about the battle in general and what type of war we are dealing with. The war is with:
1. Schemes of the devil
2. Rulers over present darkness
3. Authorities over present darkness
4. Cosmic powers over present darkness
5. Spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places

Now can't you see how Star Wars points to this battle. It is a foreshadow.

Verse 13 kind of transitions us from the battle to what we have to do. It summarizes the fact that we are to look to God as our protection and only by Him can we withstand against evil. The converse of this is that without God (by not believeing and treasuring Him above all things) we will fall to Satan and his deceptions and schemes. Ultimately if we do not turn to Christ we will not prevail and fall and die and we will not have life, but satan will lead us to death.

"Therefore" is a linking word that takes us from the battle described in the previosu verse (outlined above) to the fact that we are to take up God. So, I take this to mean, that due to the fact that this battle exists, we must take up the whole armor of God otherwise we will fail.

Point #1 - We must believe in GOD! He is thee only way.

"Evil day" - I was confused on this for a while - Does Paul mean some future time when Christ returns? Is Paul talking about the Armageddon? Or is Paul talking about every day life? Well, for me, I started reading the paragraph over again to see if there were any clues and the clue I found was this: In verse 11 it says "That you may be able to against the schemes of the devil" and in this verse it says "That you may be able to withstand in the evil day." So, I would link "evil day" to the present battle; therefore,

Point #2 - The evil day are future events, "in the evil day", but they are in the near future. It is like being in a war and you knwo that you have a battle coming up in a few ours, or in two days. Likewise, we must prepare for the evil day because we know it is coming. It most likely will occur sometime TODAY!

If point #2 is accurate (and it feels so in my heart) then that would mean that there are points in the day or week where there is no battle. Why does God do this? I think by looking at these verse we get a little bit moreinsight at our sanctification process. God is in control of Satan and I think God allows Satan to tempt us/battle us for a couple of reasons:

1. To grow us - It is likelifting weights - it strengthens us - he more we battle, the more we grow.
2. Everytime God does put us in a battle and we prevail BY TRUTSING HIM, He is glorified.

But when we lack faith and turn away from Him and lose, we are disgracing our leader and showing to the world that He is not worth trusting/following. THEREFORE, let us look the more closely at verses 15-18 to find out how we can fight these battles and glorify Jesus and find great JOY.

Point #3 - These battles are for God and for us; they are for our good.

So, how do we fight the battles so that we are victorious?

1. verse 14 - TRUTH - the first step is to staurate yourself in the Word of God. This makes sense beacsue the theme of verse 10-15 was take up the whole of armor of God to fight in this spritual warfare. Likewise, we are to read God's Word. It is like startegizing before a battle. You are the soldier and you walk in to the commander's tent to get the orders and to LEARN about the enemy and find out what he is up to and also learn about what the commander's startegy is. Likewise, we must read God's Word to find out who the neemy is and what "we" are going to do about it. I say "we" because we have learned earlier that we are "adopted sons"!!!
2. verse 14 - RIGHTEOUSNESS - Heb 12:1 - Let us lay aside every weight and sin so that we may have endurance to run the race. Sin and weight (burdens) slow us down. We must repent (true repentance means a change of heart and change of actions) of our sins and also lay our burdens on Christ (Spiritual Sabbath - Take rest in Christ) and in this manner we can have endurance for this battle.
3. verse 15 PEACE - With Jesus Christ we can have peace in our soul by way of the Gospel. The Gospel is how we fight this battle. The Gospel is our key. And the Gospel gives us PEACE in themidst of teh battle. No man in any war had great peace when the bullets were flying. But Jesus gave us peace on the cross.

Point #4 - Read God's Word to find out how we are to fight this battle.