Faith as a Shield

Ephesians 6:16 (NIV)
“In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”

1 Tim 6:12-13 (NIV)“Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

Taking a cue from our meditation some days ago where we saw that Jesus brought the use of faith to two main things, which were to get rid of stuff we don’t want and to bring in stuff we want, I want to point out to you today two other uses of faith.

From our first text for meditation, you can see that faith is used for defensive purposes because it is symbolized as a shield. A shield is for defending and the Scripture says if you have your faith in place you will not be hit by ANY fiery arrow thrown at you by the enemy. Yes, you heard me right, YOU WILL NOT BE HIT BY ANY ARROW OF THE DEVIL. I can hear someone asking, is that possible? Well let God be true and every man and every experience of man to the contrary a liar. 

The word of God said it, I didn’t say it. To use faith as a defensive weapon means you use it to protect or defend your territory and all that is therein. Put the shield of faith around you, your family, your business and all that is connected to you. Someone may ask, how can I do that? Through the words of your mouth because faith is expressed through words.

The other use of faith is offensive. Offensive is when you take the battle to the enemy’s territory, and you do that to take what the enemy has stolen from you or take from him what hitherto has been his all along. Faith as an offensive weapon makes the believer to make advances against the enemy. 

I believe this should be the primary use of faith. You don’t wait to be attacked to defend. Rather you advance towards the enemy and claim territories. These territories were yours in the first place, but they were stolen. So advance today and take back what belongs to you.