(10.) Soldier, Priest – The Shield of Faith

(10.)  Soldier, Priest – The Shield of Faith. 

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For this struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm, then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.” (Ephesians 6:10-20).

FAITH: Faith is not merely believing that God exists, it is steadfastly trusting Him with your life;

Faith is that which brings our hopes into reality;

Faith is accepting all the evidence we need to prove what is still unseen;

Faith is our reliance on God’s faithfulness to keep all His promises, even if we haven’t experienced the fullness of those promises yet;

Faith is the absolute conviction that there are divine realities which exist but are unseen;

Faith is the acceptance of the fact that the invisible fashioned everything that we see;

Faith is the attitude that pleases God the most;

Faith is trusting in God’s character and presence;

Faith is convinced that past experiences, even despite appearances, reveal God’s presence and love;

Faith is the confident response of our reliance on God after His initial gesture of grace;

Faith is when we move toward God in trust after He first moved towards us in love;

Faith is the confidence we have in God that guarantees the blessings we hope for;

Faith is the practical ability, the ups and downs of life, to find peace in those beliefs our reason had already accepted;

Faith is perceiving as real fact that which is not revealed by the senses;

Faith is when we find it reasonable to cling to God, while accepting the truth that there is more to God that we don’t know than there is that we do know;

Faith is daily commitment to remain loyal to the God of Scripture;

Faith is being firmly persuaded that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are the ultimate and eternal truth that is the foundation of the world.

Faith is declaring “AMEN!” (ie, That’s true! I believe it! So be it! That’s the truth and I accept it!) when we hear Scripture being read.

Faith is the steady trust in God that allows a believer to remain faithful.

Blind Boys of Alabama – Faith And Grace – YouTube

IMAGINATION. And who was the best teacher of the Faith in the history of the world? The Lord Jesus, that’s right.  And Jesus knew that the nature of faith required the faithful to have a vivid and healthy imagination. So, that’s what Jesus did when He went traveling around in His ministry… He appealed to the people’s imagination. He tried to strengthen everyone’s imagination in the ways He taught the people. There is so much in our faith that have to be imagined. In fact, how could anyone begin to understand this picture of God’s armor in Ephesians 6 without the imagination? And there is so much in Scripture that is not meant to be taken literally, only imaginatively. So we need an active imagination, which is so crucial in developing faith, since “faith is proving the unseen, and imagining the truth of what is not revealed by our senses.” (Hebrews 11:1).  Let’s face it, we are asked to trust in a God who we can’t see! We have to use our inspired and baptized imaginations! Faith is grounded in the mental images of spiritual belief, the images we are able to place in our minds. Jesus Himself had an inspired imagination, and He knew the importance of capturing the imaginations of His audience in His teaching ministry. Here are a couple of teaching methods that were used by Jesus to inspire and strengthen the imagination:

STORY. Jesus could have taught the truth with three-point sermons explaining the orderly mystery of the Godhead. He could have centered on a long list of theological propositions and abstract concepts. He could have focused on spiritual information in logical sequence. But He didn’t. He instead wanted to capture the people’s imagination through story, through short and stimulating narratives that make a point. Jesus taught through His homespun parables using common things of everyday life to teach a deeper lesson about the Kingdom, about how God operates. Jesus knew His audience. The Jewish mind was trained for centuries to accept story as the means of communicating the truth. As Eugene Peterson put it in Christ Plays in 10,000 Places, “The Hebrew way to understand salvation was not to read a theological treatise but to sit around the campfire with family and friends and listen to a story.” So the centerpiece of Jesus’ discourse was story-telling. In fact at one point Scripture says He told nothing but parables (Matthew 13:34). His earthy stories were a creative way to come at the truth sideways to get attention and stimulate thought. His parables about everyday realities drew the audience in and were cleverly spun to inspire, to provoke, to illustrate, even to stump. Sometimes His parables were like firecrackers, designed to wake up the mind and light a fire in the heart. Other parables were like smoke bombs, offered to make things a little hazy to encourage the listener to pursue an idea further. Still other parables were straightforward common sense and fit perfectly into the Hebraic wisdom tradition. The stories of Jesus were designed to create “aha!” moments through word pictures, and anecdotes, and extended metaphors to reach the understanding of the audience. Unexpectedly, because they were couched in simple terms, parables were actually deep dives into meaningful theology. These truths were taught indirectly and not intellectually. “Even the most sophisticated stories tend to bring out the childlike in us – expectant, wondering, responsive, delighted – which, of course is why the story is the child’s favorite form of speech; why it is the Holy Spirit’s dominant form of revelation; and why we adults, who like to pose as experts and managers of life, so often prefer explanation and information.” (Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in 10,000 Places).

METAPHOR. Jesus loved to inspire the imagination through His clever use of metaphor. He knew that the Jewish mind was accustomed to the use of metaphor due to the dominance of the Hebrew Bible. Generations of Jewish people were raised in a culture steeped in the myriad of metaphors in their Scriptures. They knew that people are like sheep, that God was similar to an eagle, that kings resemble shepherds. So Jesus jumped with both feet into this particular part of speech… Faith is like a mustard seed; a teachable heart is similar to fertile soil; building a faithful life resembles house construction. The Jewish audience was well-trained to engage their imagination so they were able to make the connections between one thing and another thing that has similar characteristics. In the Gospel of John, Jesus successfully used metaphor in all His “I AM” statements. He helpfully connected qualities of an everyday common object to His mission and status as the divine Messiah. He unpacked His nature in ways that the imaginative people of Israel could understand: I AM the Bread of Life; I AM the Light of the World; I AM the Gate for the Sheep; I AM the Good Shepherd; I AM the Resurrection and the life; I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life; I AM the True Vine. These simple metaphors, as with other more complex ones, were brilliantly spoken by Jesus to deepen their understanding of who He was and what He did. Parables were extended metaphors, and in other cases He went in the other direction and used one-liners as well. Jesus was a true master of capturing the imagination by cleverly saying that one thing is like another. Jesus was the master of metaphor.

LOSS OF IMAGINATION. There is much fear by many of us that neither the Church nor the schools have done much to strengthen the student’s imagination. The imaginations of our young people right now are starving for attention, impoverished, uninspired. What we need to do is perhaps use some of the methods of Jesus to once again strengthen the imaginations of believers in church. And certainly we could use His tried and true methods to educate our students through the capturing of the imagination. Because of this inability of so many to imagine the unseen, perhaps it is even much more important to become a “visible Jesus.” If we represented Him better in our daily lives, if we served others like He did, if we knew Scripture and knew how to operate with wisdom in the world like He did. If we could only incarnate the Spirit of Jesus, maybe we could help those who seem unable to use simple mental images to grow in the faith. Just a thought.

The Shield of the Roman Soldier.  In the 1^st C., the Roman shield was rectangular, constructed of thin sheets of wood glued together and bound around the edges with wrought iron or bronze. The outer surface of the shield was covered in thick leather. The center of the shield was hollowed out so that the soldier could install the hand-grip. The shield was made to curve around the soldier’s body and then link together with other Roman soldiers in such a way as to build a wall when they were standing together. Every soldier was protected when they banded together, and the enemy could not find away to attack. This is a wonderful picture of the Body of Christ needing to link together as they fight spiritual battles. There are no isolated soldiers during enemy warfare. It is important for many to become one in Christ during spiritual battles. Because flaming arrows was a common form of enemy attack, the soldiers would soak their shields in water before battle, till they were dripping wet, in order to snuff out the little flames as the arrows came upon them. These flaming arrows were dipped in oil or pitch or some other flammable material, lit, then shot towards the enemy. The shields would often burst into flame if the shield was not drenched in water. Each shield would be strapped thoroughly to the forearm of the soldier, so he wouldn’t drop it during the battle.

Fiery Darts of the Enemy. Paul was referring to anything that would present a challenge to one’s faith. It could be one’s thought life without anyone else involved, or perhaps insults and accusations or unfairness directed toward you. Or it could be difficulties at home, at work, in finances, in relationships, or whatever makes life difficult enough to doubt God’s love or care. When receiving these fiery arrows, stand firm in your trust, in saving faith, and ask the Holy Spirit to give you strength to hold up your shield that is drenched in the fountain of God. Strap that shield of faith to your forearm so you won’t let go. Keep holding it up so you remain protected.

The Fountain of God with which to Drench Your Shield of Faith. The divine waters as highlighted in Scripture is what we use to soak our shield of faith, flooding our shields with the knowledge of God through the holy Scriptures.

The Father as Water. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh God declared Himself to be the fountain of living water. He stated in certain terms that He was the source of spiritual water that would slake the thirst of every person who comes to Him. He alone would provide the waters of salvation to all who would come to Him and drink of His life-giving stream.

1. Jeremiah 2:13. “For my people have committed two crimes: they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug water-tanks for themselves, cracked water-tanks that hold no water.” 
2. Jeremiah 17:13. “Those who turn from you will be registered in the underworld, since they have abandoned Yahweh, the fountain of living water.” 
3. Psalm 36:9. “You give them drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.” 
4. Isaiah 49:10. “They will never hunger or thirst, scorching wind and sun will never plague them, for He who pities them will lead them, will guide them to springs of water.” 
5. Isaiah 55:1. “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters.” 
6. Isaiah 12:3. “Therefore you shall draw water with rejoicing from the spring of salvation.” 

The Son as Water. As the Son of the Father, Jesus wasted no time in declaring that He will walk in the footsteps of Yahweh. He will continue the Father’s ministry of providing living water to those who are spiritually thirsty. He too is the fountain. Jesus claimed to be on equal footing with Yahweh God by inviting others to drink of Him. He only does what He sees the Father doing, which is spring forth with fresh waters from the fountain of the Lord.

1. John 7:37-38. “Onthe last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’”  
2. John 4:10, 13-14. “Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water… Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
3. Revelation 7:17. “For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water.” 
4. Revelation 22:1. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, down the middle of the great street of the city.” 

The Holy Spirit as Water. If the Father and the Son are the fountain, the source, what exactly is the living water they are providing? The living water is the Holy Spirit, flowing freely from the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is who gives us life, who is to be taken into our hearts. The Spirit of God gushes forth from the eternal fountain for our salvation and our transformation.

1. Isaiah 44:3-4. For I shall pour water on the thirsty soil and streams on the dry ground. I shall pour out my Spirit on your descendants, my blessing on your offspring, and they will spring up among the grass, like willows on the banks of a stream.” 
2. John 7:37-39. “If a man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him. By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.” 
3. Nehemiah 9:20. “You gave them your good Spirit to instruct them, you did not withhold your manna from their mouths, you gave them water for their thirst.” 
4. Revelation 22:17. “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’ Let everyone who listens answer, ‘Come!’ Then let all who are thirsty come. All who want it may have the water of life and have it free.” 

The Prophesied Messiah as Water. By declaring Himself to be the source of living water, the fountain of life, Jesus claimed to fulfill the messianic prophecies of the Scriptures. Christ is the long-awaited Messiah, bringing fresh streams of His Holy Spirit to the thirsty souls of the people.

1. Joel 4:18. “When the Day comes, the mountains will run with new wine and the hills will flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah will run with water. A fountain will spring from Yahweh’s Temple.” 
2. Zechariah 13:1. “On that Day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.” 
3. Zechariah 14:8. “On that Day living water will flow out from Jerusalem…” 

The Shield of the High Priest. The Hebrew priests indeed had a shield that they needed to hold up. The Jewish tradition of God as the Shield was a powerful image of Yahweh, and that was what the priesthood was dependent upon. Some key passages in the Psalms with God as a Shield:

Psalm 91:4-6 – “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’ Surely He will rescue you from every hidden trap of the enemy, and He will protect you from false accusations and any deadly curse. His massive arms are wrapped around you, protecting you. You can run under His covering of majesty and hide. His arms of faithfulness are a shield keeping you from harm. You will never worry about an attack of demonic forces at night, nor have to fear a spirit of darkness coming against you. Don’t fear a thing! Whether by night or day, demonic danger will not trouble you, nor will the powers of evil launched against you.” (NIV and TPT).

Psalm 3:3 – “Many are saying of me, ‘God will not deliver him.’ But you are a shield around me, O Lord Yahweh, my Glorious One, who lifts up my head. To the Lord I cry aloud, and He answers me from His holy hill.”

Psalm 28:7 – “The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to Him in song.”

Psalm 33:20 – “We wait in hope for Yahweh; He is our help and our shield. In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name. May your unfailing love and mercy rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you.”

Psalm 84:11 – “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; Yahweh bestows favor and honor; no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless.”

Psalm 115:9-10 – “O house of Israel, trust in the Lord – He is their help and shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord – He is their help and shield. You who fear Him, trust in Yahweh – He is their help and shield.”

Psalm 119:114 – “You are my refuge and my shield; I have put my hope in your Word.”

Psalm 144:1-2 – “Praise be to Yahweh, my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle. He is my loving God and my fortress, my stronghold and my Deliverer, my shield in whom I take refuge…”

Alison Krauss & Union Station – Shield Of Faith (Official Audio) – YouTube

Jesus is the Author of our Faith and the Finisher of our Faith

“… Let us run with endurance the race set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith…”  (Hebrews 12:1-2).

AUTHOR (Gr., archegos): originator, primary source, creator, initiator, one who causes something; the same Greek word also means pioneer, trailblazer, captain, Prince, pathfinder.

PERFECTER (Gr., teleiotes): finisher, completer, consummator.

Christ originates our faith. “It is by grace that you have been saved, through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything that you have done, so that nobody can claim the credit.”  (Ephesians 2:8, NJB). Jesus is the author of our faith story. Our faith is of His creation. He began it by drawing us to Him, by dropping a mustard seed of faith into our hearts to get things started. God’s gift. The believer didn’t start the faith. We have no reason to boast about whatever kind of shape our faith is in. We don’t have the right to pat ourselves on the back for walking down the aisle to be saved. We didn’t open the door to a life of faith. We didn’t put ourselves into the position of becoming believers. Christ gave us a seed of His perfect faith, which perfectly trusted in the Father and steadfastly finished the race. He completed what He started in His faithful life. So, Christ has the kind of faith I want. If I have to choose between the faith of Christ or the feeble faith that I manufacture on my own, I will choose Christ’s faith. I want to participate in and be shaped by His perfect faith, not my imperfect faith. I want Christ’s faith to live through me. I want to adopt the faith of Christ as my own. I want my faith to be hid in Christ. I have done nothing to be especially proud of in my faith life. It has been the faith of Christ that is triumphant. It is the faith of Christ that I have been living into. It is a free gift of grace, and I owe it all to Him who originated my faith. I find that the more I recognize the faith of Christ Himself inside me, the easier it is to disengage my ego in my faith development. My own faith is a house of cards. The faith of Jesus within me is a solid house built on a foundation of immovable rock. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God.”  (Galatians 2:20).

Christ completes our faith. “For the righteous shall live by My faith, says the Lord.” (Hab. 2:4). As we participate in the faith of Christ within us, as we live into Christ’s faith, we will notice that our faith depends on Him from beginning to end. Just as He finished what He started in His own life, He wants to finish what He started in each of us as well. He has a strong desire to bring our faith, His faith within us, to full maturity. He wants to perfect our faith, to make our faith complete. Faith continues to be a gift from God, and Jesus wants the faith that we have in Him to be full of life and growth. The job of Christ’s Holy Spirit is to transform us until He consummates our faith at the end of the race, to finish our faith as we reach the finish line. “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:6). God will sustain His good work of faith in you. We didn’t originate our faith, and we won’t complete our faith. We didn’t start the race of faith, and we won’t finish it on our own. Christ’s perfect faith finished His race as He now sits at the right hand of God, and His faith within us will enable us to run until we also get the prize. This is how we share the life of the risen Christ. We imperfectly participate in His perfect faith. This takes the pressure off, doesn’t it? We don’t have to somehow concoct the perfect faith. Christ’s perfect faith is already within us. We need to instead mature in our participation in His faith, by feeding it, following it, submitting to it, studying it and growing in it. We don’t have to possess a perfect faith. We instead imperfectly live into Christ’s faith within us. And He will be sure to perfect our faith at the finish line.

CityAlight – Yet Not I But Through Christ In Me (Live) – YouTube

A Powerful Statement of Faith:

“The righteous will live by his faithfulness…

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,

Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,

Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord Yahweh.

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and He enables me to go on the heights.” (Habakkuk 2:4 and 3:17-19).