Eph 6:11-18 (NIV) Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. As we have already seen, we are responsible for putting on the full armor of God. And if we do, we will be able to take our stand against the devil's schemes. The "so that" words are saying that the putting on of the full armor comes first. And, it is saying that, that makes it possible for us to stand against the devil's schemes. We just looked at the process of Preventative Spiritual Warfare. In it we saw that the full armor of God enables us to ward off all the attempts of the devil, if we have the armor on. We have now taken the various elements of the full armor of God and have gone to Scriptures in other places in the Bible that explained what they are, how they work, how to get them on, and how to go about using them skillfully.

Put on the FULL armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes isn't talking about the individual pieces like we just looked at them. It is talking about the whole thing as a single unit. If we only put on part of it, we won't be ready to take our stand against the devil's schemes. We must eventually look at it as a whole. However, as in the case of Preventative Spiritual Warfare, we will have to see how the individual parts function in Ministerial Spiritual Warfare. As the Bible breaks them out in individual parts, we are able to see their names, their positions on our spiritual being, and their purpose of use. We have already seen the life and death aspects associated with our survival through using the full armor of God. Intense pain can come our way if we don't take advantage of all this equipment. The same is true as it relates to our ministry of helping hurting people. Many have been destroyed as they ministered to others because they didn't keep their armor on and use it skillfully. This may look like a repeat of what we have just studied. But, it isn't. It is the same armor; but, it is being used for a very different purpose.

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.