faithFULL.

Shield of Faith. It's next in line in the armor that Paul is teaching us about in the bible book of Ephesians chapter 6. In another spot, the author of the bible book of Hebrews says, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." I want to please my Father, my Daddy. I remember as a boy some of the first times that I ventured to cut the grass at my house by myself before my dad got home from work. It's not like the primary driver for a ten or eleven year old was that I just loved to work so much. Pretty much the main reason that I wanted to press in to cutting the grass on my own was because I wanted to please my Dad. So this idea is buried deep inside of you and me. Please our Daddy. And He teaches us that we need faith to do that. That really makes sense to me. Pleasing a heavenly Father that we can't see with our earthly eyes definitely takes something more that earthly sight and normal routines of living. It takes that very heavenly Father giving us both a desire to please Him and a way to please Him out of that desire. He says that way is faith.

Faith: Believing what God says is true and living out of that unseen reality.

So what are we declaring about God and us as we say this? I believe You (belt of truth). You are right (breastplate of righteousness). I rest in You (shoes fitted with readiness of the gospel of peace). You are faithFULL (shield of faith). Each piece of armor is giving us something more to declare about who God is, that what He says is true and it gives us a way to live that is holy and real, not primarily sinful, shallow and fake. Learning these things about God and Him helping us to be infused with them in our very living is giving us a new way to live. All because He is faithFULL.

For

Unbounded

Lavish

Living.

Actually, really FULL of faith. That's really what God's heart is for us in a living faith. It is so full and rich and For Unbounded Lavish Living. And that's where the bible book of Ephesians, chapter 6 and verse 16 come back in. "Take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one." Let's camp here for a just a bit. The devil, hell and all evil are set against God being For Unbounded Lavish Living. The arrows would be dipped in pitch and set on fire and launched into the battle field. If the arrow killed, great. But the flaming arrow was mainly meant to be a distraction that had to be tended to that caused an unguarded area in the line that became weak and penetrable. That's what he tries to do to us. Enter Shield of faith. Believing what God says is true and living out of that unseen reality helps to extinguish ALL (it says) the flaming arrows of the enemy. Fiery, battle living is brutal and beautiful.

So, if God's faithful heart is for us to grow faithful hearts through believing that His heart is For Unbounded Lavish Living, of course this is worth there being battle over. As we've said before, I think we would feel a bit cheap or cheated if there wasn't battle over something so rich, so full, so ravingly beautiful. And so there is opposition. It's real. In fact, it's worth too much for there to not be opposition. So much so that it's worth too much to us AND the devil for there to not be opposition against it. Let that land just a minute. This was a new thought for me this week.

Something that we and the devil have in common? Yes, something that we and the devil have in common. This faith life is worth sooooo much to us and to Satan, there is battle over it. If it wasn't worth something to the devil, why would he be so hell bent on opposing it? Somehow, he gets it. "For Unbounded Lavish Living is so real, so rich, so right.....I (the devil) must oppose it."

Us believing what God says is true (faith) is so in the guts of this battle living that we actually have something in common with the devil. For Unbounded Lavish Living is so valuable, I'm desperate for God to keep growing me in it faithfully. For Unbounded Lavish Living is so valuable, the devil desperately wants to destroy it and us along with it.

Faith is really FULL. Full of battle living. Full of faith living.

There's more.