My sermon for the night. :)

Ephesians 6:13-18

"Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;

And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

Above all, taking the faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit..."

For years upon years these versus have been almost a constant in my mind. I'm not sure what made them resonate like they have, maybe it was that song on the New Testament church CD. That guy with a deep voice sings it. :D The point is, I love them. Now here is my spiel:

Paul the Apostle told us to take upon us the WHOLE armour of God. Leaving any part of ourselves unprotected well.....leaves us unprotected. It makes us weak, makes us vulnerable to Satan's wiles.

Verse 13: "...that you may be able to withstand in the evil day..." Is there any day more evil than today? There is nothing more prominent in the world today than immorality. The first piece of armour Paul speaks of is the Girdle of Truth (chuckle if you must, I do every time I see the word). We have to keep ourselves true, morally righteous, clean, chaste, and so on. That is the most difficult task we young people have ahead of us, what with all the media garbage thrown in our faces wherever we go.

Verse 15: [Keep] "your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace". I love this part of our armour. I look at it in two ways. The first is missionary work. What better opportunity do we have in life than to teach others the gospel? Wherever we go, we must spread the gospel of peace. Second, if you just read it like this: keep your feet shod with peace, I think of it a bit different. In the footnote to this verse it says "Peace of God". Christ's gospel IS peace. "Build upon my rock, which is my gospel." D&C 11:24. We need a solid foundation to stand on. There is nothing more solid than the gospel of Jesus Christ. He must be our rock. If we keep our feet firm on the solid foundation of the gospel, no storm can move us.

The other pieces of armour I could go on and on about too, but I don't want to start boring anyone. But I do want to say something about the Shield of Faith. "Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked."

No protection you have will do any good without faith. We believe in that the first principles and ordinances of the gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We can keep our faith strong by doing those things we should be doing. I don't want to sound like a child in primary, but what better answer to 'what should we be doing?' is there than the typical primary answers? Going to church, reading our scriptures, saying our prayers (As we're told to do in verse 18!), going to the temple, etc.

The point is, the church is true. The Gospel of Peace is the true gospel. I know it. God loves me, Christ loves me and there is nothing that will make them change there minds about that. If we lose a piece of our armour and make mistakes, as we all will, what greater gift our we given than the gift of repentance?

Well, that's it. I hope I didn't ramble on, I just needed to write my thoughts down. I hope it wasn't too weird that I basically bore my testimony on my blog.......

Anywhoo, life is good! I wish all of you well! Peace!