Armor of God Session 1 - "Sizing up the Enemy"

Wednesday night began our first session in the new Priscilla Shirer Bible Study series "The Armor of God."

This study follows the recent success of the movie "War Room" which is out in theaters all across our nation.

Priscilla is a dynamic, motivated teacher of the message of God's armor - using personal illustrations and scriptures to help us thoroughly visualize our true enemy - satan.

"An invisible battle is taking place where you and I get the privilege of swaying the balance toward victory in the name of Jesus Christ." - Priscilla Shirer.

We are using Ephesians 6:10-19 as our baseline scripture for study.

We have learned so far through Priscilla:

1.  The battle is unavoidable.
Be on your guard.  Don't be lulled into spiritual sleep.  People are not our problem.  We can change our landscape.

2.  The enemy is invisible.
Satan is not God's peer or counterpart.  We need to pull back the curtain and expose the true enemy and not just keep dealing with the symptoms.

• Only our God is omnipresent.
• Only our God is omniscient.
• Only our God can work miracles.
• Only our God is eternal.

Because we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, we are seated with Him in heavenly places, which is right here, right now, where we are. In heavenly places is mentioned in: 

• Ephesians 1:3 - spiritual blessings
• Ephesians 1:20 - Christ seated there
• Ephesians 2:5-6 we are seated with Christ
• Ephesians 3:10 - rulers and authorities (enemies) are there

3.  The location is accessible.

We have full rights and privileges.  We have a divinely approved mechanism: Prayer (Matt. 21:13)

Paul is calling the church of Ephesus to be divine warriors - us as well.

"To the extent the church prays, that is the extent that they will be able to access all of the spiritual resources and divine authority given to them to stand against the enemy" - Priscilla Shirer.

4.  Our weapons are not physical.

We have weapons that work to pull back the curtain of the enemy's lies and not just fight the symptoms.  We have been handed God's Armor.

Isaiah 59:17-18 talks about the Divine Warrior.

2 Corinthians 10:3-4 talks about us not warring according to our flesh and describes what our divinely powerful weapons can do:

• Destroy fortresses
• Destroy speculations
• Destroy every lofty thing
• Taking captive every thought

5.  The victory is irrevocable.

The victory has already been given.  As Priscilla said, "look at Revelations......we win".

She stated that there are not only six pieces to our armor but seven.....prayer.  

"If we refuse to pray, our armor isn't activated.  Prayer activates the armor.  It's what allows us to be in the heavenly places to get suited up".

"Prayer is our internet access".