The importance of being a struggling Christian (Ephesians 6:14–16‪)‬ Lift Your Eyes Archives - Forget the Channel

Do you ever feel like the Christian life

is a struggle? Do you feel that it’s hard, day after day, to keep going? Do you

find it hard to trust God, to live for Jesus, and to speak about Jesus with

other people? Maybe you look at other Christians—at church, or online, or in sermon

illustrations or books—who seem to have it all together and who seem to be able

to live victorious Christian lives, happy and largely free from struggles. And

then you look at yourself and ask: “What’s wrong with me? Why is it all such a

struggle for me?”















Whether or not any of that is part of

your experience, this part of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians has something very

important to say to you. Struggling is normal for Christians. In fact, it’s

not just normal. Christians should be struggling, and if we’re not,

there’s something wrong! The Christian life is a struggle. Struggling is

vital for Christian life and ministry and mission. We need more struggling

Christians. We need more people who are committed to the tough, hard slog of

trusting God, living for him, being transformed and changed, and sharing Jesus

and our lives with others.







In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul describes

the normal Christian life as a spiritual “struggle” (Ephesians 6:12). The

word translated “struggle” was originally used to describe close combat. It’s about

standing our ground against an opponent who wants to throw us down, and grappling

with everything we’ve got to keep our place. It’s a spiritual

struggle against spiritual powers, but this struggle is not primarily about

uncanny supernatural events. This spiritual struggle takes place in the daily

struggles of the ordinary Christian life. It involves living, speaking and

trusting the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it’s a struggle that all of us need to

take part in:







Stand, therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the armoured vest of righteousness, and having wrapped your feet with the preparedness of the gospel of peace—in all things having taken up the shield of faith, by which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.Ephesians 6:14–16







Here, Paul is expanding on “the full

armour of God” he mentioned back in verses 10–13. He’s taking things that he

has talked about previously in his letter, and describing these things as

military equipment for a spiritual struggle. As we look more closely at these

items of armour, we can be encouraged and emboldened to keep going in that

struggle.















The struggle to live for the gospel







Firstly, Paul says to “stand” in the

struggle, “having girded your waist with truth” and “having put on the armoured

vest of righteousness”. Those words “truth” and “righteousness” are a summary

of many of

the things Paul has already said in his letter. As we learn Christ, we

learn to be like him and so “to be

renewed by the Spirit of your minds and put on the new humanity, which has been

created according to God in the righteousness and devotion that come from the

truth” (Ephesians 4:23–24). Which truth? The truth of the gospel of Jesus

Christ, as Paul has said near the start of his letter: a href="https://w...