In 2016, I began writing a series of ministry books on various
subjects, which we published on Amazon, in both E-book and paperback. For the next few weeks, we will show an example of the contents in each of these 18 books. You
might find these books helpful in reminding you of godly concepts used
in following God. The E-books are priced at 99-cents each in USA.
Paperback books vary in prices according to the number of pages. Free
E-books are offered daily on selected books through Amazon. At the end
of this writing, you will find a link which takes you directly to Amazon
if you choose to order this book.
Joan Boney
Chapter 7
Put on the whole armor of God
Put on the whole armor of God
As a new Christian in 1975, I was having a number of what the church called "Satanic attacks."
At the time this was happening, I owned a business (American Indian Arts) in Dallas, Texas.
(One church person thought the attacks were coming from the symbols on the Indian art objects, which he thought to be demonic.)
Art objects have no power unless you are somehow worshipping them, which I wasn't.
***
My bookkeeper's husband was a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. So we called him and he came to help me.
Walt said, "Just put on Jesus."
I said, "Fine ... How do I do that?"
He couldn't tell me.
Later I tried to enroll at Dallas Theological Seminary, but not to be a minister. I didn't realize a woman could be a minister and I didn't want to do this anyway. I just wanted to know Bible.
But they wrote me a nice letter explaining they did not take women as students at the seminary.
But they wrote me a nice letter explaining they did not take women as students at the seminary.
However, they discovered that I had an earned doctorate in education, so they invited me to attend classes and help teach the preacher boys, who they said were really bad in preaching.
(I did do this but I didn't learn anything about Bible at these classes, that I can recall, and I seriously doubt that I helped any preacher boy with his delivery of sermons. In fact, I can't even recall meeting any preacher boys.)
Concerning wanting to know Bible: God, by HIS Spirit, taught me Bible!
I John 2:27-28 But the anointing which ye have received of HIM abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in HIM.
And now, little children, abide in HIM; that, when HE shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before HIM at HIS coming.
(Live in that which God has taught you by HIS Spirit.)
***
Later I saw Ephesians 6 and God revealed the meaning to me.
10-18 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of HIS might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;
Later I saw that the pieces of armor with which we dress ourselves are: truth, righteousness in the sight of God, peace, faith, salvation, the Word of God, and prayer.
But mostly all these things become a way of life to us, the Christian.
***
Unknown to all, and finally revealed by God to me, my problem at that time centered around my own desire to be married, which it turned out was not the will of God for my life!
We, and all the religious people around us, can miss everything unless it is revealed to us by the Spirit of God.
***
Mostly everyone wants to praise us during the time of "attacks", and make us feel like we are not responsible in any way for that which has come upon us.
That is often not the case.
***
In the prayer group that I attended, one woman, whom we thought to be very spiritual, mostly because she was highly educated and the wife of a medical doctor, found out I had been taken into heaven twice and she thought the devil was trying to kill me to keep me from coming into the work of God for which I was called.
That sounds wonderful!
Only it really wasn't true.
(Although later the church people tried to kill me as Jesus predicted to HIS disciples. John 16:2)
***
God gave me the following scripture to show me the truth about me, at that point in time, 1975 and onward.
I Peter 2:20 (NIV) ... How is it to your credit for taking a beating for doing wrong and endure it?
Then I knew the truth ... My problem was covetousness, envy, and wanting to look good.
When I stopped these pursuits, the problem stopped!
***
This is not to discount putting on the whole armor of God.
It is critical that we put on truth of God continually, keeping in mind that which God has brought to our attention by the Holy Spirit through scriptures, dreams, concepts.
We must keep doing that which is right in the sight of God, thus righteousness. What does God want me to do concerning this?
We must set our goal to live in peace ... putting away from us disruptive people and things. Making choices toward peace.
Certainly we think on those things which have brought salvation to us. The way God revealed HIMSELF to us by HIS Spirit and how we simply believed what HE gave us and did what HE showed us to do. Faith in God and believing that which God told us, not in having faith in our works!
And we continually pray for ourselves and for others who have the Spirit of God and maybe even some prayer for those to whom God has not yet revealed Himself ... however a lot of the depression of individuals is because they haven't yet got those people they love saved!
So it can be tricky!
It is definitely not a formula.
These godly acts are a way of life for us. It is not that we make a list and do these things regularly. Rather we do these things because the situations we face call for our doing godly acts.
It becomes a way of life for us to pray, seeking God's will, trying to find out what is right in the sight of God, knowing that devils and our flesh are authors of those desires to "get even" and "set people straight" when they trespass against us, we are alert continually to our flesh wanting to take over and rule, we are aware of devils and how they try to work in our lives.
We learn Christian ways as we deal with the various problems of this present life and these Christian ways become a part of experience that we have with God as we grow in things of God.
We, as Christians, are different from the people of this world because we have the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God and Jesus in us to teach us and to guide us. Each time we act upon that shown us by God's Spirit we are recreated into the image of Jesus, The Word. accumulate experience with God as we live through the problems of this life, following God and knowing the difference between the ways of God and the ways of our own flesh and devils.
We can't imagine acting like we see people on TV act ... and we can't imagine doing those things either.
For now we are godly men and women, created into the image of God by doing the Word of God repeatedly.
It is a way of life for us to follow the Spirit of God as we live on this earth.
James 3:17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
If we start to deal in a hypocritical way, we recognize this and choose not to do such.
When we begin to be angry and argue, we are "pricked" by the Spirit of God who lives in us and we know we are not going in a peaceable way, and we choose to stop and let God settle us.
If we start down a path that is very difficult, not easy to be accomplished, don't we now know we are going the wrong way? We learn to back off and pray, seeking God's will, looking for God's plan. If we follow the plan of ourselves and other humans it is often difficult, costly, hard.
We learn that God's yoke is easy and HIS burden is light! (Matthew 11)
The scriptures teach us these truths and as we gain experience in doing these ways, we recognize when our flesh and devils are trying to take us another way.
We know the truth because the truth lives in us and we have experience in doing the truth.
We are godly men and women!
***
It is so important to keep our own hearts free from bitterness and from unforgiveness for if we are striving with another we put ourselves in great jeopardy.
James 3:14-16 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
***
When in strife, we examine ourselves first ... pleading with God for HIM to judge us, for we need to see what we are doing through God's eyes.
Are we suffering for the sake of the gospel or are we suffering because we are yielding to the flesh and devils in the way they urge us to go?
I Peter 2:20 For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.
Are we suffering because we are trying to do what we believe to be right in the sight of God?
Or are we suffering because we are doing what our own flesh wants to do or to say.
James 1:26 If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain.
***
I keep coming back to our own selves, for often we are allowing ourselves to focus on the wrong thoughts ... or filling our minds with the wrong TV or books ... or putting ourselves with the wrong people who are allowed to influence our thinking wrongly, often church "goers" will do this.
***
Proverbs 4:23-27
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee.
- froward: stubbornly unruly
- perverse: unreasonable
(For us, perverse would be twisted from the truth of the Bible as shown by the Holy Spirit)
Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.
Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.
Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.
***
One of the most fun things I got to do in the first years of being a Christian was to go with 3 other women from our prayer group to houses in Dallas where we cast demons out of the houses.
(Later I learned that demons did not live in houses but rather they make their homes in people. So I had to give up these "fun" trips.)
But during those years, we got to go to the home of Clint Murchison Jr., who owned the Dallas Cowboy Football Team, at that time! His new wife, Ann, had been the wife of the main scout for the Cowboys and she divorced Gill Brant and married the owner of the Cowboys. Our main concern seemed to be, would Gill Brant, Ann's previous husband, continue as scout for Cowboys, because he was very good at spotting football talent and we wanted to win! (We didn't think much, or at all really, about adultery and such in those days.) Also the four of us went to eat after we finished delivering the house from devils. Isn't church fun!
***
Another exciting moment in the church circles of those early years, 1975-79 ...
I began dating a guy from our church group who said he was a prophet. He had been in the mafia in Atlanta, and was hiding out from them at the time I met him at church in Dallas. He was very upset when the pastor added TV cameras to the church service!
Anyway Joe wanted to date Ruth but she was busy so he asked me out. I think we went to a church meeting.
After we came back to my apartment, I was making coffee. I turned around, and there stood Joe totally naked outside my kitchen area. I darted away, fled my apartment, and hid out at my nearby business until Joe's car was gone from my apartment.
Later I thought of the way Joseph in the Bible dealt with Potiphar's wife. Joseph "fled" when she made sexual overtures to him. (Genesis 39)
Paul says: Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. (I Corinthians 6:18)
There are many ungodly men hiding out in church groups! It is sad, for we go to a church group in good faith expecting godliness, but I've often been propositioned by evil men parading as good men in the church group. (One man who approached me was even an elder in a Baptist church. I took Bible and read I Corinthians 6 to him. Then he fled from me!) Fortunately I was old enough and knew enough Bible to flee from these ungodly men at church when they came to me, or I caused those men to flee from me by reading Bible to them. (This first happened to me when I was 15-years-old at Church of Christ in Clovis, NM. The son of my aunt's friend tried to convince me to have sex with him. I fled!)
If you have children, teach them!
The main thing for teenagers to understand is this truth from Bible: At the time of sexual intercourse the two people become one flesh.
I Corinthians 6:15-16 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith HE, shall be one flesh.
Sometimes we teach the women these things but fail to teach the teenaged boys.
***
And think of the children who suffer abuse at the hand of evil men at churches. Children often think they have to obey those adults.
There are many evil men and women hanging out today in both Protestant and Catholic churches.
I have been propositioned more by men in various singles groups at churches than I ever was by men in the world.
When we know the truth of the Bible it is much easier to make proper decisions.
The ways of the world today are even more opposite to the truth of the Bible.
(Consider 1936 when Edward VIII had to give up the throne of England in order to marry a divorced woman. Today would that happen?)
Sin today is even applauded and sought after by the masses.
(That was not the case in the 1930's & 1940's. In those days even movies had censor laws.)
We know by these things that we grow much closer to the return of Jesus and the wrath of God that is coming upon the evil doers of this world.
Keep yourself and your children by the truth of God when possible.
*****
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*****
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