Zadok Discipleship Course - Armed for War
45
Feet Shod with the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace
What This Piece of the Armor Actually Does
Ephesians 6:15 (AMPC) • The Gospel of Peace • At One Again
Every time this passage is taught someone says: "This means you should always be ready to share your faith." That is not what Paul is talking about here. Every piece of the armor is a revelation, and you only put it on by entering into the experience of that revelation. The question is: What is the revelation of the gospel of peace, and what does it produce?
To bind up - to bind your feet tight and secure, like ski boots locked firmly around the ankle. When you are bound in like that, you can lean forward, lean back, take a hit from the side - and you will not go down. You are locked in. That is the armor's product: firm-footedness, stability, and readiness to stand without being knocked over.
What Is the Gospel of Peace?
Not the absence of conflict. "At one again." The gospel in its fullness: not merely that sins can be forgiven or hell escaped, but that God and man are at one again.
Jesus, through the cross, broke down the wall of enmity between God and man and brought man into Himself - into union with the Godhead. "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Col. 1:27). The mystery of the gospel is at-one-ness with God. He came not merely to forgive sins but to join us to Himself.
When you enter into the revelation of being at one again with God - not merely as doctrine but as lived experience - it produces a firm-footedness that no circumstance can shake, no demon can move, and no accusation can topple.
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The Vision: Two Root Spirits
The Georgia Campus • Insecurity • Inferiority
Invited to speak at a high school campus - seventy students, a morning Bible club, fifteen minutes per session over two weeks. Between sessions: serious, extended prayer over the campus. Binding the spirits you would expect: drugs, alcohol, lust, pornography, rage. Pressing in with force. But nothing breaking through the way it should.
Then: a full, open vision. The campus visible before him. Out from either side rose two giant tentacles wrapping around each other at the top. Attached to these massive tentacles were dozens of smaller demon spirits, each one with a name: hate, rage, unforgiveness, suicide, drugs, alcoholism, perversion, homosexuality, fornication.
Praying against each one - "I bind the spirit of drugs" - each small spirit would flutter backward like a leaf in a gust. But the moment he stopped, it slowly stood back up. Because they were drawing their strength from the two giant root spirits they were attached to.
After pressing in for thirty, forty-five more minutes - spiritual eyes opened to see beneath the surface where those tentacles were rooted.
The first was insecurity. The second was inferiority.
God said: "These are the same two demon spirits that were loosed upon Eve in the Garden of Eden. And they are the same two demon spirits the devil releases upon My people constantly. If you could break the power of those two spirits, every other spirit would easily fall."
Shakes the foundation. Causes you to doubt what God has said about you. Makes the ground feel unstable. Operates by undermining the Word of God as your anchor.
Manufactures a feeling of being less than what God has made you. Makes you feel you have not yet arrived, are lacking something essential, are below where you should be.
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The Garden: Where It All Started
Genesis 3:1-5 • The Strategy of the Devil • Eve's Foundation
Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, walking with Him, totally at one with Him. No insecurity. No inferiority. They knew exactly who they were because God had told them, and God does not lie.
"Has God indeed said…?" The Word of God was Eve's entire foundation. The devil told her it was unreliable. Instantly: insecurity. Like being told everything you believed about your life is a lie. The ground was no longer solid.
"You will be like God" - but they were already in His image. Nothing about their standing had changed. But the devil made Eve feel less than she was, as if she had not yet arrived, as if she lacked something essential.
The moment Eve took the substitute, she lost the very thing she was trying to recover. That is the strategy. The devil hits you with insecurity - shaking your foundation, causing you to doubt what God has said about you. Then he hits you with inferiority - making you feel less than what God has made you. And the moment you feel either, you reach for something. The devil has the substitute ready.
Modern Substitutes
It was not until the 1960s or 70s that dandruff was considered a social problem. Then a shampoo company began running commercials: a handsome man and beautiful woman about to meet, romantic music building - then he scratches his head. She recoils. They were not selling shampoo. They were selling insecurity.
"Feel that? Good. Now buy this to fix it." That is the entire machinery of modern marketing: built on insecurity and inferiority.
Drugs, sexual immorality, pride - all work the same way. Each provides a temporary feeling of power, invincibility, or desirability in place of the genuine identity that only comes from God. The devil offers the substitute. God's people reach for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil all day long - trying to shore up their sense of security and recover their sense of value.
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At One Again: The Answer to Everything
John 17:20-23 • Romans 8:37 • Deuteronomy 28:13
All that God is and all that God has. Jesus gave us everything the Father gave to Him. Nothing held back. He prays that we would be one in Them to the same degree that the Father and the Son are one.
Insecurity says the foundation cannot be trusted. But when you are at one with the God who upholds all things by His mighty word of power (Heb. 1:3), that is the most stable foundation in existence. Not based on performance, personality, or past.
Inferiority says you are less than you should be. But when the doxa - the totality of all God is and has - has been given to you, there is no higher position available in the universe. You lack nothing. You are not inferior to anyone.
The devil speaks lies designed to diminish you. God speaks enormous things about you. The only thing that matters is what God says. When you enter into the revelation of being at one again with God - the spirits of insecurity and inferiority lose their grip. Every smaller spirit that drew its strength from those two roots begins to weaken. The tentacles start to fail.
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Who God Says You Are
Identity in Christ • 24 Declarations • The Firm-Footed Stance
The answer to insecurity and inferiority is not a better self-image program. It is the gospel of peace - the revealed realities of who you are in Christ. These are not affirmations. They are facts. Speak them aloud, and let them go past the intellect into the spirit:
When you walk in the experience of being at one again with God - knowing who you are and Whose you are - the spirit of insecurity has nothing to stand on. The spirit of inferiority has no ground to work from. That is the revelation of the gospel of peace. That is what it means to have your feet shod.
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