{"id":6788,"date":"2015-08-18T23:52:56","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T23:52:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6788"},"modified":"2015-08-19T23:15:00","modified_gmt":"2015-08-19T23:15:00","slug":"the-sword-of-the-spirit-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/?p=6788","title":{"rendered":"The Sword of the Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i>Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God<\/i>. Ephesians 6:17<\/p>\n<p><i>For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.<\/i> Hebrews 4:12<\/p>\n<p>Paul\u00a0taught the church at Ephesis that their warfare was not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12). He stressed that in their resistance, they were to take up the full armor of God. This armor included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The\u00a0belt of truth<\/li>\n<li>The breastplate of righteousness<\/li>\n<li>Feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace<\/li>\n<li>The shield of faith<\/li>\n<li>The helmet of salvation<\/li>\n<li>The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Every article of armor described is an impenetrable covering designed to defend a specific, vulnerable part of the body\u2014all, that is,\u00a0except\u00a0one. That exception is an offensive weapon\u2014none other than the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.<\/p>\n<p>All it takes\u00a0to use the sword of the Spirit is for a child of God to speak or pray a phrase or a verse of Scripture in faith.\u00a0Many years ago, a\u00a0dear friend of mine, after being saved for only\u00a0a week,\u00a0told a couple of friends who\u00a0were fascinated by the occult\u00a0about her new relationship with Jesus. When they heard it, they began trembling in rage and swearing at her, threatening to force her to give up her faith. Well, she had been told the week before that if the devil attacked her faith in Christ, to rebuke him in the name of Jesus for there was power in\u00a0that name. She shouted, \u201cI rebuke you, in the name of Jesus! Get out!\u201d\u00a0The two young men\u00a0tore out of the door before she could even finish her command!<\/p>\n<p>Did she have a Bible school degree? NO. Had she attended twenty-five seminars? NO. She merely spoke out what she had learned from the Word on\u00a0the first day of her salvation. The sword of the Spirit went to work, severing the ties with friends who could potentially confuse or mislead her. The close relationship she had with\u00a0them was effectively cut off by the Word of God that day.<\/p>\n<p>You grow up in faith by drinking the sincere milk of the Word of God (1 Peter 2:2) and by learning to chew and digest the solid food and meat of the Bible (Hebrews 5:12-14). And as you develop the ability to feed on solid food, the Bible says you mature with consistent intake of the Word. By practicing\u00a0it, you are trained to discern good and evil (Hebrews 5:14).<\/p>\n<p>When you wield the sword of the Spirit, you are operating not only in the Word of God, but also in\u00a0the Holy\u00a0Spirit. If you maintain a continual diet of the milk and meat of the Word of God, His Spirit will trigger a phrase of Scripture or a full verse to your heart and prompt you to speak it, pray it, think on it, or study it. This is the <em>sword<\/em>\u2014His Word\u2014prompted by the <em>Spirit<\/em> of God, i.e., the <em>sword of the Spirit<\/em>. If you are troubled, are facing a stressful situation, or are ministering to someone,\u00a0you can trust the Holy Spirit to bring to your heart what you\u2019ve read or heard from the Word that will perfectly address the issue at hand. Jesus said, \u201c<em>But the Helper,<strong> the Holy Spirit<\/strong>, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and <strong>bring to your remembrance all that I said to you<\/strong><\/em>\u201d (John 14:26). This is the operation of the sword of the Spirit!<\/p>\n<p>You are directed by God\u2019s Word to put on the full the armor of God\u2014to walk in truth and righteousness, to be ever-ready to present the gospel of peace, to walk in faith, and to guard your thoughts by the saving grace of Jesus Christ. And, summing it up,\u00a0you are commissioned by God to carry at all times, in your mouth and in your heart (Romans 10:8), that wonderful sword of the Spirit\u2014the Word of God.<\/p>\n<p>No time spent in pursuit of the Word of God is ever wasted.\u00a0It\u00a0will cause you to grow; by it you will be\u00a0equipped to discern good and evil, and by exercising\u00a0His Word, you will accomplish the\u00a0purposes of God.<\/p>\n<p>God bless you as you equip yourself in His Word!<\/p>\n<p>Dorothy<\/p>\n<p><em>For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.<\/em> Hebrews 4:12<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Ephesians 6:17 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[210],"tags":[218,217,216,213,215,214,219],"class_list":["post-6788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sword-of-the-spirit","tag-holy-spirit-will-bring-to-your-remembrance","tag-how-to-be-led-by-spirit-of-god","tag-meat-of-the-word","tag-overcoming-by-the-word-of-god","tag-sincere-milk-of-the-word","tag-sword-of-the-spirit","tag-two-edged-sword"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6788"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6813,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions\/6813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}