Our Armor

May 2

Good intentions can go awry. In fact, the unfortunate reversal of our best efforts to ‘do the right thing’ is so universal that we have an old saying that sums it up – ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’ Our track record for accomplishing the better things of our nature is abysmal—because our fallen nature gets in the way.

The reality is that there is a war being waged within us. Paul describes it succinctly in Romans 7:19-21, “The good that I desire to do, I do not do, but the evil I would not do, I actually do…when I would do good, evil is present with me.” Paul concludes this thought in verse 24: “O, wretched man that I am! Who can deliver me from this death?”

There is no recourse within the natural man who is steeped in the depravity of his fallen nature. He cannot overcome himself any more than the proverbial individual who has fallen can 'pull himself up by his boot straps.' There is a remedy for our dilemma and Paul shares it with us in verse 25: “I thank God (for deliverance) through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

I Thessalonians 5:8 elaborates on the solution Jesus has provided to the sin problem that clouds our effort to live rightly. Here Paul says, “Let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate and the hope of salvation as a helmet.” We wear the accouterments of our salvation as our armor against our proclivity to sin!