Don't Miss the Details

Have you ever started reading a book and then been tempted to skip to the last few pages?  It’s a practice I would not recommend.  It’s so frustrating because you don’t know the details of the story.  You don’t know why the heroine moved to Scotland and took up knitting or how the hero wound up in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.  Likewise, if the readers of Ephesians skipped the first 5 chapters and went straight to the last page where Paul commands us to: “Put on the whole armor of God, …” (Ephesians 6:11 ESV) they would have missed the details.

For the longest time I would get hung up on the individual pieces of the armor, trying to understand the purpose of a breastplate or understand how the breastplate hooked on to the belt.  I was missing the main idea behind the armor.  When I went back and read Chapters 1-5 again, chapter 3 verse 19b jumped off the page. Paul writes: “that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:19b ESV).  The fullness of Christ means to take on His attributes, His character, His Holiness, His Righteousness, His Peace. In other words, put on Christ, take on His nature and live it out in your daily life.   

Don’t miss the details: Applying all of the Gospel (Chapters 1-3) to all of your life (Chapter 4-5) is putting on the armor of God. 

-Brenda Wooff