Verse: and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Ephesians 6:15
What boots you wear is extremely important. More important than the brand of the boot is breaking them in. Try putting on a brand-new pair of boots and going on a 12-mile ruck, your feet will be torn up. I spent a good amount of cash on my boots before deploying to Afghanistan because I knew that saving my feet would be important.
One of the best boots I owned I nicknamed the Jungle cleats. These boots had what looked like football cleat spikes coming out the bottom and were just mean-looking. I got tired of slipping down the jungle while trying to climb the gulches, so I bought them to try them out, what a difference. I no longer worried about climbing through the slippery mud with a 120lbs ruck because those boots helped me cling through with ease.
When we are standing firm against the attacks of the world and evil one, we must be grounded, and our grounding comes from the Gospel. I have heard before that this verse is “moving out and spreading the Gospel”. And that may be the intended purpose of it but I see a little different angle.
The context in this combat is standing firm, not moving toward battle. Plus, that Gospel in the offense is already mentioned as the sword of the spirit. I believe that knowing we are at peace with God because of the sacrifice of his son to save us from our sins and damnation, gives us the confidence to stand and fight. We know that the performance of our fight is not what saves us, because we are grounded in the peace that passes all understanding.
Jesus Christ sacrificed himself to us to redeem us and adopt us as sons and daughters. We do not deserve this; it is by grace alone. But the fact that we are justified gives us the mental and spiritual fortitude to continue to “fight the good fight” knowing that we are saved to be soldiers in his army.
We will all fail at one point or another. We still live with our flesh which constantly wants to do evil. This is a struggle we will have until by God’s grace we pass on and go to be with Him. But even though we fail, our understanding and faith in the Gospel shows us that God will not just toss us out because of our failure. Rather He will continue to sanctify us to conform closer and closer to Him.
In this fight, you will fail. Stand firm with confidence and keep on fighting, knowing that Christ died for your sins past, present, and future. No matter what, keep fighting for Christ and stand firm in the faith and knowledge of His Gospel.
Written By,
John Cooper
Godly Grunts 6
I like your whole series so far and try not to read too much at once because then I can ponder. I’m not a soldier and no army would take me, except God’s army! I too have pondered the shoes of that STAND us for the gospel of peace. I hate shoes! And firstly I too noticed that we’re standing, not running into OR backing away from but standing. Then I thought about that more. I have some illnesses that make standing much harder then moving. And also when I was you g I’d walk across our hot stoney driveway or the concrete in summer…. But moving was easier then standing. I think we’ll never know when we may be…