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by Kenneth Copeland
Notice that Paul thought it was very important for us to put on this
protection—he said this in no uncertain terms: “Wake up! Cast off
the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
Just as Paul wrote, it is also high time for our generation to cast
off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Armor is
something that covers not just one side like a shield, but rather
it’s a full suit of protection that covers the front, back, sides and
top. When we have on this armor, we are completely covered.
How can that be? How is it that the enemy can get through a
believer’s line of protection?
When the earth was without form and void and filled with chaos,
God said: “Light be.” He pulled that command out of His
innermost being and instantly caused the image of this universe
that was on the inside of Him to be slung at the speed of light into
being. Love spoke it. Light Himself said it…and it was so.
And the same God who said: “Light be,” has shined in our hearts.
Love Himself has shined in our hearts. The greatest power in the
universe has been born in us and is standing ready to be turned
loose in our lives.
Here we are given the key to the declaration the Apostle Paul
made in Romans 6:14: “Sin shall not have dominion over you.” We
walk in dominion over sin the same way Jesus did. “If ye keep my
commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept
my Father's commandments, and abide in his love” (John 15:10).
Jesus satisfied the whole law and never sinned. He took the
hundreds, even thousands of commandments and boiled them
down to two: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and
great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40). Jesus kept all
the law by keeping the greatest law, the law of love.
Sloppy love won’t cut it here. This isn’t talking about loving others
just when you feel like it. It is not saying you can love God one
minute, then turn around and hate your brother: “He that saith he
is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until
now. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar:
for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he
love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have
we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1
John 2:9; 4:20-21).
One teenage gang member Nicky Cruz took out his switchblade
and said, “I am going to kill you now.”
“I'll tell you right now,” Dave said, “if you cut me into a thousand
pieces, all the pieces of me laying here on this sidewalk will be
crying out to God, ‘I love Nicky. I love you, Nicky. I love you,
Nicky. Jesus loves you.’”
Nicky told me he was furious and tried to swing his knife, but as
he did, “Something grabbed me by the arm and I couldn't stick
him,” he said. “I tried and tried and I tried, but I couldn't touch
him.”
First John 5:18 gives us key information about staying in the light,
in that place of protection. It says: “We know that whosoever is
born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth
himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.”
No, he’s not talking about human perfection. He’s talking about
keeping ourselves in the love walk, keeping ourselves in the light.
If you do sin, don’t run from God, run to Him. Confess that sin
immediately. Get right back in the light. Nobody can lay hands on
you and just pray over you to get this done. You have to keep
yourself in the love of God. You have to keep yourself over in the
area of repentance. No one else can turn that light on for you. No
one else can say for you, “Let there be light.” You have to keep
yourself in it.
The devil cannot stand against believers who walk in the Light like
that. He can’t touch us in that armor. He has only one assignment
in the presence of that Light—he must flee. The armor of Light
drives him out wherever we go.
That’s his destiny.