Shield of Faith

Ephesians 6:16 Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

Have you ever wondered why faith was associated with the shield in this "parable" of armor in the Christian life?

Upon meditation, I think it is because when you decide to first take the step of preventing your heart from being stained with sin, you have to choose the right defenses.

Will power alone is not adequate. Because eventually our strength will wane.

But when we let God empower us, the defenses hold.

That's when faith comes into play. Human nature pushes us to believe we are capable of doings things on our own(until proven otherwise, but even then sometimes we want to believe we still can do things alone).

To have a shield that will quench the fiery darts of Satan, we need faith. Faith in God that He will give us victory. (Deut 20:4; Psalm 44:6-8; Luke 10:19; 1 Cor. 10:13; 1 Cor. 15:57; 2 Cor. 2:14; 2 Thess 3:3; Heb. 2:18; James 4:7-8; 1 John 4:4; 1 John 5:3-5) [Please take the time to read those verses.]

You cannot have victory in your own strength because there is no faith. And without faith, we have no shield. And no shield means everything that Satan throws at us will hit us.

When we give up the foolishness of self-sustaining victory, we are able to trust in God and have faith in Him to give us the victory, to withstand the fiery darts of the devil, and to resist the devil.