GIG 266 - The Armor of God Is a Part of Who We Are

Continuing from last week in our talk about God's strength in us, we get a little deeper into the words and the imagery that Paul uses in Ephesians 6 to describe "the whole armor of God." We discuss how all the things Paul mentions are really the gifts and workings of God that we simply walk in, and are really a part of who we are in Christ. Perhaps the biggest battle that the Christian faces has nothing to do with "fighting spiritual battles," but rather has to do with understanding the reality of their true identity in Christ!

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Here's this week's short GIG-Bite, a quick sample of this week's program.

I am what I am by the grace of God

Just found this in my 'drafts' here on Blogger. I guess I thought I had already published this here. :) I posted it on Facebook back in August.

Much can be said by emphasizing each word in this verse.

God Didn't Cover Your Sin

God didn't cover your sin. Imagine sin as a cancer. God didn't simply throw a blanket over the cancer to cover it up. He went in and extricated every last cancer cell and removed it from you forever, as far as the east is from the west, and replaced every cell with perfectly healthy cells that are of His very own DNA.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I get it. It really is hard for some people to break up their love affair with the Law, even though they should never have put themselves there in the first place. :)

More Like Falling in Love

Give me rules, I will break them
Show me lines, I will cross them
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves and breathes

Don't Do Anything

Someone shared this video on my Facebook page. It's a recent song from Sam Phillips (the actress, formerly known as Leslie Phillips, the Christian artist).



I love you...
When you don't do anything...

God Brings it All

“Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.” (Rom 12:3 The Message)

Passion

‎"Passion is about... I've got something in me and I've got to get it out of myself!"

Sadly it seems much of the church world is purpose-driven and not passion-driven. It's more results-oriented and not so much "what's in me that has to get out"-oriented. Stuff has to get done, stuff has to get done, stuff has to get done... because stuff has to get done, not so much because of God-inspired passion that can't help but overflow as it bubbles up from within.

There Is No Record Against You

(Love)... keeps no record of wrongs
1 Cor 13:5

If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings,
who would stand a chance?
As it turns out, forgiveness is your habit,
and that's why you're worshiped.
(Ps 130:3-4, The Message)

And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Col 2:13-14

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
2 Cor 5:18-19

As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
(Ps 103:12)

But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
(Isa 53:5-6)

"I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake;
And I will not remember your sins.
(Isa 43:25)

No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
(Jer 31:34)

ONLY BY GRACE
Only by grace can we enter
Only by grace can we stand
Not by our human endeavor
But by the blood of the Lamb

Lord, if You marked our transgressions
Who would stand
Thanks to Your grace we are cleansed
By the blood of the Lamb