I'll Be Honest

In this series, we are considering the Christian's call to battle, and in this message, we will start considering putting on the breastplate of righteousness. Imputed righteousness is an essential truth that the Christian must know and lay hold of when in the midst of spiritual warfare.

We all have a meeting in the courtroom of God to be judged, and we will all either be declared righteous or guilty. The problem is that we're all guilty, but the solution is that God has provided a way to remove our guilt and make us righteous.

A teaching that has become very widespread within mainstream Christianity is the idea of the rapture. This view is very popular, but is it biblical?

In our battle against the Devil, one of the essential parts of the armor is the breastplate of righteousness. If we're going to make battle and wage war with the Devil, we must first make sure we're robed with righteousness of Jesus Christ. If this is part of our armor, we can expect that the Devil will do all that he can to make us trust in our own righteousness.

The heart of the gospel is that there is a way to obtain the righteousness of God apart from the law and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. There is only one way we can be accepted before God, and that is by having Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. Is that your hope?

Tim considers what Jesus means in Matthew 5:19 when He says, “whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven…” Outline: 0:00 – Question on Matthew 5:19 3:55 – Considering the Context 9:35 – What is “the law” and “the prophets”? 13:19 – Jesus is not speaking of imputed righteousness. 17:23 – Under Moses, what we...

We have to remember that the Devil, our adversary, is crafty. And one of his clever tactics is making us lose our balance and making us go to extremes. "Satan loves to sail with the wind, and to suit men's temptations to their conditions and inclinations." - Thomas Brooks

A righteous life is a vital part of our armor in our spiritual battle with the Devil. Good theology and abstaining from immorality isn't enough; by God's grace, we need a righteous life full of fruit and good works if we would win this fierce battle. "A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hands of God." - Robert Murray McCheyne

How should we as Christians recognize (or not recognize) the holidays that are observed by the world? How should we view other Christians who hold a different view or take a different approach than we do on these matters?

If we desire to be overcomers in our battle with the Devil, we must be wearing the breastplate of righteousness, but how does righteousness shield us from the Devil? One thing the Devil fears about the righteous life of the believer is the effective prayers that they are praying.

If we would stand in our battle against the Devil, then it's obviously important that we have the right kind of shoes for our feet that will help us to stand. The Devil will do all that he can to cause is to stagger and lose our stability. But if our feet are prepared with the Gospel of Peace, by God's grace we'll be able to stand and not lose our spiritual stability.

We’re often told that we need to love and be nice, and usually, the world and our culture defines this as not offending people or telling them that they’re wrong. But we can’t let the world define for us what love is, and we can’t succumb to the pressure they may try to put on us to conform to their standards and ideas. This isn’t the day for us to be Mr. Nice Guy; it’s the day for us to proclaim...

There are churches and denominations who appeal to Jesus' command in John 13 to say that we must participate in foot-washing. Does this command apply to us today? Should we practice it literally or should we consider the historical context and spiritual principle?

Do you pray because you actually want God to answer, or do you pray just because you're expected out of routine? When we come to pray, we should be praying because we actually want God to answer. And we should be living righteous lives so that when we pray God actually does answer.

There is a delusion that many are tricked into believing. It is the delusion that Christianity is a do not religion: don't do this but do this. They believe that the Christian's life is solely one of morality. But this is not impressive to the living God, and it has no power to stop the indulgence of the flesh. Is this your religion? Or are you trusting in Christ and obeying the Lord out of love f...

Christian, the next time you're severely tempted and enticed to yield to sexual sin, just remember that your sin is against God. Just remember that it will grieve the Holy Spirit and will likely cost you much joy in the Lord. What's more important to you: a close relationship with your God, or the fleeting, emptying, defiling pleasures of sin?

In our combat with the Devil we don't just need stability, but we also need mobility. We need to have adaptability in order to move swiftly in the spiritual realm. And we must not forget that our mobility comes from the gospel of peace.

In our spiritual warfare, our armor will be woefully insufficient if we are not equipped with our shield of faith. The devil has flaming darts, and even as Christians we still have plenty of flammable matter in our flesh. But we need to remember that there is not a single fiery dart from the devil that can't be effectually quenched by our shield of faith.

Jesus gave two commands there in verse 15 of Mark chapter one: repent and believe. Jesus did not speak any careless words. If he said people are to not only believe but to repent, He said it with purpose. Why do we bring this up? We bring this up because it is becoming more and more popular to hear teachings which state that repentance is not necessary in order for a person to be saved.

In our spiritual warfare, another piece of our armor that we must put on is our hope of future salvation. Let us consider how the hope of final salvation helps us in the present in our battle with the kingdom of darkness.

The Bible says that in the beginning that God made us in His image. What does it mean to be made in the image of God? How are we made in God's image when God doesn't have a physical body like we do? Has this image been lost after the fall of man into sin?

I am a sinner saved by grace; a child of the living God; a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ; a man striving to live by the Spirit-that is who I am. That is all you really need to know. God saved me when I was 26 years of age, after pastoring two churches. - Michael Durham

What does it mean to abide in Christ? Abiding in Christ is not automatic, it is a command to be obeyed. It is us learning how to maintain fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and we must have active daily and conscious awareness and interaction with Christ.

As Christians, we have a book from another world. We have a book that's likened to a sword, and this sword is directly from the Spirit of God for our spiritual warfare against the Devil. If you would be a conqueror in this battle, you must believe, obey, trust, and use this one piece of offensive armor given to us by God.

Many believers will ask about how to abide in Christ. What branch do you know that struggles about whether it will remain in the vine or not? Neither are we to struggle to abide in Christ. All of our struggle to abide is proof that we are not abiding but rather we are trusting in ourselves. There is no work to hang onto Jesus because Jesus is hanging on to us. We have misinterpreted our responsibi...