Feet Fitted with the Readiness that comes from the Gospel of Peace.
As a Roman Soldier, if you had nothing to protect your feet, every step of the journey to battle would be painful. Once you got to the battle, you would not be able to run, rough areas would be out of the question. You would slip everywhere, and you would not have any grip to be able to run the enemy through. So, a Roman soldier would have worn open-toed boots, which laced up around his ankles called “Caligae”. The soles of these boots were covered with hobnails. This would have protected his feet on the way to battle, given secure and pain-free footing during battle enabling him to stand firm against the enemy. He would have been able to resist the enemy with much greater ease. Boots were an equally important part of his armour.
As with the Roman soldier, we are much better equipped to resist the Devil and his schemes, if we are equipped with a knowledge of the Gospel of Peace.
Let’s start by exploring what the Gospel is. I made a rather boring film that explains it in detail, which you can find here https://youtu.be/u9m__fortRM But in brief, God created all things, including us, Man and women. Adam and Eve (the first Man and Woman) were created in the image of God, perfect. Now man and woman were created with free will so that they could choose to love God, or not. God even made a perfect paradise for them to live in with only one rule, that they must not eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or they would surely die. In their paradise, Adam and Eve got to walk and talk with God himself. To be in his presence. The lucky, lucky pair.
This is the bad news but the “good news” or “Gospel” is that God came down in the form of Jesus, Jesus lived a sinless life, He paid for our sins with his death on the cross and at the moment of His death, He said “Father Forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.”3, and then He rises in power to reign forever. That good news changes everything, He died taking on the punishment of our sin, removing it from us as far as East is from the West. That forgiveness means God now sees us through the righteousness of Jesus and once more we can be in the presence of God.
- We know with absolute certainty that We are redeemed, Jesus has won the battle for us, and all we have to do is believe that Jesus has paid the price for our sins. In other words, Jesus has fought the battle for us and won. We do not have to fight; we can live in peace. A peace we have not earned, and a peace we have not fought for, but it is a free Gift from our saviour Jesus who has done all the work for us so that we can choose to live in peace.
- Just to explore that point a little further, God loves us so much and wants to be in an eternal relationship with us. He chose to sacrifice is His son Jesus as FULL payment for our sins, so that we could spend all eternity in God’s presence, instead of spending all of eternity separated from the presence of God. All for choosing to believe in the sacrifice Jesus freely made for us. Once we have chosen to believe this, how can we not find peace? We know we have eternal life, there is no speculation, there is no need for us to worry about our future, it is guaranteed, and we can be at peace.
- Again, exploring these two points together, we can be very confident in our position in Christ, it is a position that is not based on our own ability or even our own worthiness, instead, it is based on Christ’s gift to us, HIS worthiness, HIS Strength. So, we can be confident in our daily battle against the Evil One, because of Christ not because of us.
- Through my (this) blog, I have spent the past 11 years exploring who I am, what’s my purpose and where am I going. I freely admit that I have focused a lot on who I am, but with reason. How can I do anything without understanding who I am in Jesus, how can I understand what it means that Jesus died for ME and opened the door to a relationship with Him without understanding this fundamental point of who I am in Jesus. I have found such peace in this knowledge, and the more I discover of my place in Jesus the greater the peace I find. Leading me to stand firm and resist the Devil and his schemes, and I know I can win, not because of me but because of Jesus.
Knowing our place in Jesus is fundamental, it gives us the confidence to stand firm in face of the Evil One’s schemes. Because Jesus has already won the battle, and Jesus is our refuge:
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way,
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
Psalm 48:1-3
So, we can be confident in our refuge, a refuge not founded on our own abilities or worthiness but in His strength. Therefore, we can be confident in our daily battle against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Because Christ has already won. All we need to do is put on His “Caligae” and stand in that victory, and so stand against the Devil’s schemes
