Ephesians 6:10-20

Spiritual Battle: Standing Firm – Strengthened by God’s power (v10)

If we go back to verse 10 it tells us:

“Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.” V10

We have no strength to fight this battle on our own and we are no match for the devil. We have to find strength in God, as our own efforts will be useless. The phrase“Be strong” may be a bit misleading because it almost implies that we have to use our own strength. A more useful way to read the passage is “Be strengthened” – the strength we need come God.

One of the main themes of Ephesians is that we are “in Christ”. This means that apart from him we can do nothing or as John MacArthur says “his life is our life, his power is our power, his truth is our truth, his way is our way and his strength is our strength.”

We are not promised that the battle is going to be easy. Fighting a battle never is, but God’s best soldiers are those who are conscious of their own weakness and rely solely on him.

We often think that our level of faith is dependent on us – “if only I had more faith”.  Your faith is only as strong as the thing that you have faith in. I could invest all my life savings “in good faith” but if the bank goes bust, I could lose all my money.  If our faith is in God he is completely unshakeable and dependent and we will never lose!

To rely on God’s strength we need to understand it and have confidence in its protection. That is why we need to look back at the rest of Ephesians to see how powerful God is:

–          Christ has defeated Satan on the cross and has dominated. The worst that Satan can throw at us is death, but Christ has defeated sin and death!

–          God is omnipotent. He is ALL POWERFUL. Nothing can defeat him. What an ally to have!

–          We are fighting a battle that has already been won!

Illustration: Scene from Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers. Helms deep when they are surrounded by the enemy and Gandalf arrives surrounded by a white light with the riders of Rohan arrive. They charge down the hill, with immense power and defeat the armies of Sauron!

Just like those fighting in that scene, without the power of Gandalf they were destined to lose. Without God’s power we will lose the battle and Satan will have his way.