Meat for the Hungry

Ephesians 6:17 “And take the helmet of salvation…” Now that we understand the what – salvation   – we need to understand the why. As we learned last time, our salvation is only because of Jesus, for salvation belongs to the Lord (Ps. 3:8). Therefore, this helmet is His gift to us. It protects our mind, the area of our anatomy where we think, learn, and reason.  Our mind enables us to discern between truth and lies, fact and fiction. Fact:  If we have believed and received Jesus as Savior and Lord, we possess the gift of salvation. However, because of our sin nature or flesh and the enemy, called the devil and Satan, our mind needs protection. God created us with an intellect, but daily impure thoughts or bogus ideas invade. These can be thoughts about our origin, purpose or eternal destiny. They may sound good, but some are completely contrary to God’s truth.

Isn’t it wonderful to be in love, to feel butterflies when he takes your hand and the explosion of passion with his embrace? I love, love. I love romantic stories, movies, engagements and weddings. I think everyone should be in love, have a fairy-tale ending and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, love isn’t all champagne and roses. It’s the meshing of two personalities, two ways of living and possibly two distinct goals for the future. This process refines a relationship, but it can also strain it. After a time, passionate, fiery love fades and two choices emerge. Leave to find another inferno or stay with the glowing embers. God says, “…rejoice with the wife [spouse] of your youth.” In other words, choose lasting love. This takes a yielding of our will and a change of heart . Then, the two become one in more ways than flesh.

Ephesians 6:17 “And take the helmet of salvation…” Our last piece of protective armor is a helmet called salvation. Before we answer why we need this helmet, we first must understand salvation. The Bible, God’s holy word, tells us sometime after the seven days of creation, the serpent deceived Eve, so she disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit. Eve then gave the fruit to Adam and he chose to disobey. With this sin or act of disobedience, a sin nature came to everyone born from Adam. Now all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory and as God told Adam before He created Eve, the penalty would be death. This was not just physical death, but spiritual death or complete and eternal separation from God. However, because God so loved the world, prior to creation He had a plan in place to rescue mankind. Since the penalty of death or law was set in stone, any rescue would involve death. God’s plan:  A onetime substitute would die in our place. However, the blood spilt i...

Did you know every person has an element of faith? It is part of our human makeup, our conscious mind, if you will. It’s how we were created. We can have faith in animate and inanimate objects. For example, you may have faith in your spouse, children, pastor, or friends. Another type of faith is when you sit in a chair – you have faith the chair will hold you. So what is faith? Webster’s definition includes words like allegiance, fidelity, sincerity of intentions, belief, trust, and strong conviction. But there is a faith that goes way beyond the physical. It is something ethereal and supernatural. Hebrews 11:1 describes it as, “…the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This is how we believe in God, Whom we do not physically see, but know He is there. Without this faith it is impossible to even believe there is a God, let alone please Him, “…for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (Heb. 1...