October 17, 2011
Extinguished
On the spiritual battlefield believers have to be well rounded and know
how to respond both offensively and defensively. Lately I feel like all I’m
doing is playing defense. The Armor of God is getting heavy and I’m getting
weary. As I re-read Paul’s description on the Armor of God I was struck by the
protection we get from the shield of faith. The shield of faith doesn’t
extinguish just some of the flaming arrows in the arsenal of the evil one, but
rather it extinguishes all of the flaming arrows. I’m thinking that
standing firm and standing my ground just got easier…those flaming arrows
really are simply smoldering blanks. (Eph 6:16 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----“The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous man runs into it and is safe.” (Prov 18:10) Faith is like a coin. It has two sides made of the same substance expressing itself in two different ways. Both expressions are important, but neither is more important than the substance of the two. That is, the coin won’t be a coin without its both sides.
-----The most commonly conceived side of faith is that of dependence upon something for survival, support, and prosperity. It is the aspect presented by Hebrews 11:1a, “...the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” And even though it is a dependence, it is neither entirely a passive dependence alone, nor marginally that alone. Our dependence upon Jesus Christ for ultimate survival is almost entirely passive. We can do nothing from our capacity to perfect ourselves for admission into His perfect kingdom. Yet this dependence is not quite entirely passive. We must sincerely desire His perfection such that we will follow it along the path He makes for perfecting us by the time we enter the kingdom. But our dependence upon Him for temporal survival is much less passive. Although we do passively rely upon Him upholding the universe by His word of power, our passive reliance upon Him bringing the annual seasons we join with our active tilling, planting, and harvesting. And we must even more actively depend upon Him for the maintenance of a good culture and economy for serving as an effective production and distribution system of all life’s necessities.
-----Thus we crossover in faith’s substance to the other side of the coin. In as much as we look in faith to the Lord for some things (and should for all things,) we must do at least some active participation with the Lord in completing those things (and should for all things.) The other side of the coin is in how we do what we do to participate in the completion of the things we hope for. The name of the Lord is our strong tower. The name is not just the vocalization by which He is called. The righteous do not run into a pile of alphabets stacked up into a tower. The name is His characteristics, it is His personality, the way He does things. So this way of doing things is a strong tower. But don’t mistake it for a minimalist concept saying the Lord is only a set of character traits expressed in people who believe in those traits. He is a person, a being, a living entity which expresses Himself only through godly characteristics. And those expressions are a strong tower, not just in which we are safe by His making them, but also in which we are safe by our making them as well. So then our running into the strong tower of His name involves our doing the kind of godliness that He is. Stated in short: in our being faithful. This other side of the coin is the being like the one upon whom we depend.
-----What's unfortunate is that this one sense seen from two diferent sides of a relationshipthe is denoted by two terms, faith and faithfulness. The sameness of the two concepts is not as conspicuously noticed and pondered because of it. Faith is as truly made of faithfulness as faithfulness is made of faith. That is to say, the doing is as truly made of the believing as the believing is made of the doing. Thusly the shield is light and strong.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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