The Christian Life IS

D.M. Lloyd-Jones,

We are called, in the Christian life, to a battle, not to a life of ease; to a battle, to a warfare, to a wrestle, to a struggle…It is not a true Gospel that gives us the impression that the Christian life is easy, and that there are no problems to be faced. That is not the New Testament teaching. The New Testament is most alarming at first, indeed terrifying, as it shows us the problems by which we are confronted. But follow it-go on! It does not stop halfway, it goes on to this addition, this second half; and here it shows us the way in which, though that is the truth concerning the battle, we can be enabled to wage it, and not only to wage it, but to triumph in it. It shows us that we are meant to be “more than conquerors.”. . . .

What is offered us as we find ourselves, as Christian people, facing all this-this wrestling, this struggling, this combat? You notice that there are just two things. First, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might”; second, ‘Take unto you the whole armor of God.”

 As we come to look at these two things there are some preliminary comments that I have to make. The first is that both these are necessary. We are not to take one without the other. The Apostle says both, and we have to do both. We shall have occasion to repeat that constantly as we go along. But notice the order in which he puts them. He does not tell you to put on the armor first, and then to be strong in the Lord. No, it is the other way around: “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might”; then, “Take unto you the whole armor of God.” There is a very real significance in the order.