The Breastplate of Righteousness is all about protecting your HEART. Your heart is the central part of your being. It’s the essence of who you are. Ask yourself, “What is the core of my Christian experience?” It’s that through Christ you are the righteousness of God.
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become (a completed act) the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21
In the session, Knights of the Way Academy, I discussed how our righteousness is the essence of who we are as Christians. Our righteousness is not something we BECOME, it’s something we ALREADY ARE through spiritual rebirth. It’s a completed act.
In other words, through spiritual rebirth, we got the DNA of our Father. We didn’t have to work to get that DNA— we were BORN with it.
We are JUSTIFIED in Christ. It means our SPIRITS are regenerated— made perfect. But sometimes we doubt we are the righteousness of God. Our heart gets subtly attacked.
What To Do About Doubt
Let me give you three ways to shore up your Christianity— to protect your heart, to put on the Breastplate of Righteousness.
1. Make sure you understand what salvation is and why you need it.
God is not mad at people about sin. He understands that man’s basic problem is that he has a fallen nature (see my article, How God Views Sin). For that reason, God wants people to receive a new nature.
Since “natures” are the result of LIVES LIVED, God made a new nature available through the life of Christ. Just like Adam passed on his fallen nature to us through BIRTH, Christ passes on His new nature to us through birth as well.
Spiritual birth occurs when God’s seed (the Holy Spirit) impregnates a man’s spirit. This occurs when, by faith, man’s asks God to be intimate with him. He asks God to come into his life. When this occurs, man is literally reborn into another Kingdom. He is born into the Kingdom of Heaven. His new born spirit actually lives there.
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:6
We are a new creation in Christ.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
2 Corinthians 5:17
That is WHAT salvation is, but why do you need it?
You need it to know WHY you are living. You need it to tell you HOW to live. Prior to this we were nothing more than the walking dead.
The thing is, you can still choose to live out of your flesh. That is, you can still live out of the residual pull of your body. If you let it, your body can tell you what to think, feel and do based on earthly standards.
But if you want to LIVE, if you want to BENEFIT from your new nature, if you want to understand the PURPOSE of life you have to LIVE out of your heavenly nature.
Christ himself told us the purpose of His nature:
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
John 10:10b
But there can be obstacles.
In my book Truth Based Thinking, I discuss 3 obstacles to living IN your new nature. They are:
• How we deal with sin.
• How we deal with natural information.
• How we deal with the Devil.
For this session, I’ll discuss one of those— how we deal with sin.
This brings us to the second way you can protect your heart by putting on the Breastplate of Righteousness.
2. Make sure you deal with OBSTACLES that try to negate your righteousness. One thing you can do is deal with sin GOD’S WAY.
Many people deal with sin the same way that the world deals with failure. They try harder!
That’s not how God wants you to deal with sin. God wants us to understand that He already dealt with sin so we don’t have to. You ARE righteous so stay in that mindset. If we sin in this world, there is only one thing He tells us to do:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us (cleanse us) from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
He wants us to simply confess our sins to Him. He promises to take care of the rest.
The fact that we have sinned means that we have mentally left God’s Kingdom. Our perspective has shifted from God and His ways to the world and it’s ways. The point of salvation is that we have already “become the righteousness of God.” This is our new IDENTITY and our point of reference.
For a Christian, sin is all about leaving that perspective. We’re not supposed to flagellate ourselves in order to get back to Him. We simply confess our sin. He promises that HE will do the cleansing and purify our mind, will and emotions on earth from all unrighteousness. There is nothing left for us to do but ask and believe that He has taken action.
GOD changes us from the inside out. We are never cleansed by trying harder or from an external effort to change ourselves. If we try in our own strength, it means that we do not understand God’s ways and are dealing with sin from an earthly perspective.
In order to protect our heart and put on the Breastplate of Righteousness we have to deal with sin God’s way.
For a more complete discussion on this subject and our responsibility to other people when we sin, see my article, How To Deal With Sin.
Finally, you put on the Breastplate of Righteousness and protect your heart when you:
3. Make sure that you understand Christ’s mission on earth so you can understand your mission on earth.
What was Christ’s mission on earth? It was to take back the Kingdom lost to Satan by the first man, Adam.
That was the GOSPEL of Christ.
Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the KINGDOM, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
Matthew 4:23
The good news was that the time had come to take back the Kingdom.
Through Christ’s death, not only did He obtain a new nature for us, but He also defeated death and the Satanic Kingdom of this world.
The final pronouncement for the restoration of the God’s Kingdom is made when Christ comes again to set up His earthly Kingdom.
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, with that, loud voices raised a great cry in heaven: “The kingdom of this world has now become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.”
Revelation 11:15
In the meantime, we have been given a mission. It isn’t just to sit around and wait for heaven. God’s plan is to use us to take back His Kingdom.
It begins internally, then He advances His Kingdom externally.
This is important for you to see. You are wasting time and leaving your heart unprotected if you do not understand that you have a mission. God prepared works in advance for you to do.
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in ADVANCE for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10
What those works are and how to get them done, is the subject our next session— Weapons Training: Feet Fitted With Readiness.
Synopsis
Piece of Armor: Breastplate of Righteousness (Ephesians 6:14)
Concept: Man’s spirit is justified through Christ. Upon spiritual rebirth, he becomes the righteousness of God. God bringing heaven to earth through you.
Action needed to put on piece of armor: Approach God with an attitude of repentance. Prayer of faith or Sinner’s Prayer. Meditation, allowing God to build trust in you so that you can fulfill your purpose on earth.
Prayer of Faith:
“Dear God, I am a sinner and need forgiveness. I believe that Jesus Christ shed His precious blood and died for my sin. I am willing to turn from sin. I now invite Christ to come into my heart and life as my personal Savior.”