Jesus, teach me how to take ... the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Help me learn how to use it skillfully under Your leadership and training. Help me see that like the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit is a mobile item. It isn’t worn; it is used. Show me that in most aspects, it doesn’t do much defending in spiritual battles. Help me mostly use it for the purpose of attacking. As I go back to the issue of old movies, I saw two swordsmen fighting. They were striking each other’s sword a lot. Help me understand that, that isn’t the way You do it. Help me use the shield of faith to do most of the blocking and the sword of the Spirit to do most of the striking.

Jesus, when I use the sword to block an opponent’s swing, then I am using the sword in a defensive manner. When I use the sword in a defensive manner, it is basically acting as a shield. Teach me that it is best to only use my shield to block off satanic attacks. Because, when I take up the shield of faith, I can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one; the sword of the Spirit doesn’t do that.

As I only consider the offensive aspects of the sword, help me learn to not try to use other parts of my armor. I have seen people take their breastplate of righteousness off and try to beat people over the head with it. But, that isn’t the kind of study I want to be exposed to here. Help me learn the most common, correct ways of using the armor of God.

Jesus, help me get used to the fact that in actual spiritual combat, the sword of the Spirit is almost exclusively used as a weapon of attack. And, my shield of faith is almost exclusively used as the instrument of defense. Show me that the weapons I fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Cor 10:4).

Jesus, in the shield of faith study, I spent some time studying the natural flow of Your use of the sword of the Spirit and the shield of faith. I looked at the block/strike method as You defeated all of Satan’s attempts to cause You to sin during Your temptation in the wilderness. Since the material in the section on the shield of faith covered some principles that are going to be used to build this part of the study, help me remember and be able to use them skillfully.