Polemistis

Over the past 15 years I have lost count of the number of times that I have had the prophetic word 'Warrior' spoken over my life. It's been such a big part of who God is calling me to be that a few years ago I decided to make a reminder of that calling. Moses had his staff to mark off the things God had done for the Isrealites as a reminder, I used my left arm and had the word as a tattoo as a constant reminder of what God has called me.

I read a lot, all kinds of things really, and recently I picked up a book in the library off the cuff called Raven: Blood Eye, its about a band of Norse Vikings who land on the south coast of England and destroy the village they come across taking two prisoners with them. One of those has one red eye due to a blood clot.

Throughout the book so far (I am only half way through it) the Norsemen have gotten into a few battles with the English, and there has been a lot of mentions about things such as Brynja, as well as the weapons that the Norsemen use, however there has not been much in the way of explaining what they are, so I looked them up.

Brynja was the chain mail body armour that the vikings wore, historians speculate that it was probably elbow and knee length and worn over thick clothing, and was designed to protect against cuts from bladed weapons. Recently the Spike TV programme Deadliest Warrior demonstrated it effective capabilities against a Katana sword.

Then today in church one of the guys came to the service in full medieval armour, this guy does re-enactments and spends most of his weekends off somewhere fighting with authentic armour and swords and the like.

For hundreds of years men have relied on armour for battles, for all manner of reasons wars have been fought for all kinds of gains, and armour has played a massive part in all these warriors lives, just the other day I was reading a newspaper article about new advancements in modern body armour for our armed forces. There was a photo with the article that showed this new armour which made the soldier look like a Star Wars storm trooper.

As Christian we are no different, we are in a battle: -

For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms
Ephesians 6:12

Its true that the weapons of our warfare are prayer and fasting etc, but just like many aspects of life the natural speaks of the invisible, and God Himself has set aside armour for those in the fight.

Ephesians 6:13-17 gives us the details of this armour

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet
of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (KJV)

I have always been a firm believer that is the bible says something in a particular way then there must be a reason God chose to state it that way. So I will stick with the same format here.

Belt of Truth
As Christians we stand on the truth of God's word, as a warrior, the belt would have held everything together, it kept the clothing in place, provided a place to hang your weapons, its the very thing that keeps it all together, and without the truth of God, then its really all for nothing

Breast Plate of Righteousness
Its our protection, when Anthony wore his armour into our church service tonight, he demonstrated how the bastplate protects him, he had our Pastor take his sword and strike him hard in the chest, his point was that yes he still felt the blows, but he could move forward with confidence that the breastplate protected him from any harm. The fact that is it righteousness attached to is is all about our conduct, if we can stand firm on God's truth with is girded round our waist, our character shines through as that of Christ Jesus, our protection is clear.

Gospel Shoes of Peace
The commission of Matthew 28:16-20 tells us make disciples of all nations, we can not do this without the gospel, its central to our story of Jesus. But its not just something we can speak, as a witness we have to put on the gospel, walk it out. Francis of Assisi is attested to have said ' in all things preach the gospel and if necessarily use words' The gospel message is one that actions speak far greater than any words will, we need to walk it as well as talk it.

Shield of Faith
More protection, the passage itself says its so you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the enemy.


Helmet Of Salvation
This part of the armour seems self explanitory, but there are more aspects to look at, its about having purity of mind, Jesus took the commandments and expanded on their actual meanings, salvation brings a new creation for christians, so the helmet is in place to protect the mind from the 'old man' as well as salvation being vital for our souls.

Sword of Truth
I mentioned earlier about the weapons of our warfare being things like prayer and fasting, but the most important weapon in our arsenal is the sword of the spirit. Its our protection and our offense, without it we are lost. Its our direction and our guide.


The interesting thing is that in feudal Japan, the Samurai viewed theor sword as their honour, their beliefs taught them that the Katana was the samurai's soul.


If these warriors could view their sword so strongly, and be wrong about their views and belief, how much more should we view our sword as christians in the army of the Almighty???

The sword that we carry as part of the Armour of God is none other than the word of God its our bible.


In 2000, I attended a conference were the speakers were Pastor Judah Smith of The City Church in Seattle - you can view his website here and Noalan Clark of Jesus Feast Fellowship in Canada (Jesus feast Fellowship website)


During the conference they were talking about the importance of the word to us as christians, and something that was said really impacted me, and it should be one of the fundamental aspects of our walk.


'What Kind of a warrior can you be without your sword?'


We need to know the word, we need to carry the word, I hopeimpacts you as much as it did me.


I want to finish with a quote I first saw at the end of the film Tears of the Sun. Which for me sums up the importance of being the warrior we are called to be and to daily put on the armour of God in our lives


'The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing'

Agape

Walking home through Neath today, something that my wife said the other day came back to my memory, this is often the case for me, Menna is full of pearls that get me thinking spiritual stuff.

We were recently blessed with our second daughter, and Menna commented on how you can love something so very much that a short time ago you had never even set eyes on. And walking home from the In law's this evening I started thinking about love.

In Greek there are four words that can be translated into English as love.

Storge, Philia, Eros and Agape.

Although each word means love, they each hold a very different meaning: -

Philia - in ancient greek it would have meant friendship, the kind of love that you feel for your friends, the texts read philos, it referred to the love between family and friends, an enjoyment of an activity shared with those people. A Brotherly love.

Storge - its an affection, usually a natural affection like when people tell you that they love pizza, or their computer.

Eros - the type of love that is shared between husband and wife, attraction, sensual, sexual desiring love

Agape - sacrificial, unconditional love.

Now why have I been looking at this, why have I been thinking about it today on my walk home.

Well, let me start by sharing the reason I was walking home. As a family we spent much of the day over at my in laws, since I am still of on paternity leave from my job, it has been a real blessing to be able to head over to my wife's parents and chill out, let gran help out with the kids, killing two birds with one stone - gives my wife and I a bit of a rest and gran cant wait to get her hands on the gran kids, so happiness all round generally.

Today for reasons unknown in the minds of parents the world over I am sure, my eldest daughter, who is only 17 months herself was being - for lack of a better term - a whinge-bag. No matter what was happening she was crying, moaning, or throwing a tantrum. This had been going on most of the afternoon and during dinner I had enough. So stuck her in the buggy to go for a walk to try to settle her off to sleep. Now in fairness to my little girl she is normally very busy and into everything, but not normally grumpy, so the chances are she was a) over-tired from not sleeping the night before. b) teething or c) she's coming down with something.

So off we set for the 15-20 min walk home from the grandparents place, and I got thinking about how even though she was being very naughty around dinner time, I can not stay angry at her for long. She's far to cute for that and I love her way too much.

Then it dawned on me that this is the earthly picture of what God holds towards us His children. Now I don't claim to be anywhere near God's league in the loving people stakes, I realised that God has entrusted my children to me as a way of showing me just how much I mean to Him also.

Children are a gift from God, there is no doubt in my mind, but they are not perfect, but nor are we as humans, since Adam and Eve fell in the garden God has had to look upon His creation as we have turned our backs on Him, ignored Him, made fun of Him at times, and although I doubt my daughters will ever get to this point with me (my wife maybe - but not my girls) God was crucified by His own children.

John 3:16 says For God so Loved the world that he gave His one and only begotten Son...

The word used here is agape

1 Corinthians 13 the love chapter of the bible uses the word agape, '....the greatest of these is love'

So what does that mean for us???

Agape is unconditional, there are no boundaries for it, there are no rules that apply to make it. The whole point it that nothing matters, nothing can affect or change this feeling. This is what God showers upon His creation. Agape.

It doesn't matter that you are a sinner, it doesn't matter that you are not and never will be worthy to stand before God, it doesn't matter that you are as imperfect as you could be, God still loves you.

Does this mean that you can get away with anything you like - well no it doesn't, your actions will not change the fact that God loves you, but your actions with always have consequences. God hates the sin yet loves the sinner.

God loves you period. But there is a response that is required of us also.

John 14:15 'If you love Me, you will keep my commandments'

With this come promises from Christ that as Christians we should hold on to.

The first is one that as born again Christians we should already experience which is that of the promised comforter - the Holy Spirit. the others can be found: -

John 14:21

John 14:23

John 15:10

And then for me I hold fast to 1 John 5:3

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

Blogging

Over the years I have tried doing this a few times, and I'm sorry to say have failed miserably at blogging.

However, both my brother in laws have blogs, and reading them has been quiet eye opening, looking at the inner workings of their minds on all sorts of subjects, mostly church and theology related recently. But it got me thinking, as you would expect from theology discussions, that I have usually got a lot to say on just about everything, its the bae of my wifes existance I think, but what better than a blog to ramble on.

So this is the start of my new blog, the ramblings of Wap, the increasingly busy life of me