(This book should have been out. LOL. But I am closer to the release today than I was when I first thought I was. I didn’t initially factor in the Great Takeover. That is when our Heavenly Father takes over the writing process, and I follow His lead. Therefore, He made me go back over it again. This time, I am doing it right. I am listening and writing what I hear. I thought I was doing that the first time. But I must have digressed in the process. I really love when Father does this because something amazing always comes of it. All that I am sharing is under inspiration. It has truly been a blessing to pen it.

In being sent back to go over it again, I was led to print out the TOC (table of contents) and examine it for flow and continuity. Then I was given an app that reads for me whatever I give it to read. Using the app, I was led to listen to my book chapter by chapter. It needed to flow and it needed to hold my attention. If it did that, I was then able to go to the next chapter.

In the process of listening, I was told what to add. The add was an integral part of the book. It was necessary, especially if we are going to be facing, fighting, and slaying Giants in my book LOL. But the add is also powerful as a stand alone. So, I am actually being allowed to share with you this sneak peak into I Am A Giant Slayer, the second spiritual warfare book written by Jodi L. Serino-Barbour. ENJOY.

CHAPTER 2: Dressing For Battle

Ephesians 6:11-18

New King James Version

11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—

When you get dressed in the morning, afternoon, or evening, how do you dress? This is one of the things that I always think about when it comes to the complete suit of armor. It has just occurred to me that the armor is presented in the very manner that many of us dress – bottoms, tops, shoes, coat (shield), hat (helmet), purse, keys.

Recently, I shared on social media that  when we get up in the morning and put on our literal clothing, but we forget to put on our spiritual armor. I likened this to the story of the Emperor who had new clothes made for him by a tailor who  lied to him about the thread that was used to make the material that the clothing was made from. The King was made to believe that his new clothes could only be seen by one with a pure heart, so the King and all who were with him began to lie about their own ability to see the garment. So the story ended with the King parading around naked, thinking he was dressed to kill, until a child exposed that  he was indeed naked. I mention that story to say this: If we don’t dress in our complete suit of armor before we leave out to interact with this world, we are, in effect, parading around naked. That makes us sitting targets for our enemy, the devil. So let’s consider the garment to put it on now.

The waist girded with truth:

Some translations use the word belt . Back in the day, I remember hearing my mom, and grandma talk about having their girdles on. Today, on the market is a waist trainer (belt) that is supposed to snatch the waist. In some home repair stores the staff wear back braces or belts that provide added support. All of these are clues to the purpose of having the waist girded. It strengthens the core. It helps one with their posture. It helps them to stand straight. The waist was to be girded with truth. Remember that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life; and that we can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens us.

The breastplate of righteousness:

The breastplate covers the heart. This is important because the heart is the seat of motivation. God’s Word tells us to safeguard our heart because it is the “wellspring of life”. (Proverbs 4:23 NIV) Jesus said at Luke 6:45 that both good and evil is stored in one’s heart and that it is from the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks – whether good or evil. Jesus also stated that it is what comes out of our mouths that defile us at Mark 7:14-23, and we were already told that what comes out of our mouths is from the overflow of our hearts. So this breastplate is not any type of breastplate. It is a breastplate of righteousness.

Now there are two types of righteousness. There is man’s righteousness which is a self-righteousness; and there is God’s righteousness which is based on our faith. Romans 5:1-11 let’s us know that we are declared righteous (justified) by faith. This is because without faith it is impossible to please God well because we must believe that HE is and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6) So, having our hearts covered in the breastplate of righteousness helps us to stand and move out of our faith and trust in God. It helps us to trust the Lord with all of our heart and lean not unto our own understanding as we are told at Proverbs 3:5,6.

The feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace:

A person with a shod foot is a person who have shoes on basically. Initially, I looked at this verse as meaning that wherever I went, because the feet is our first mode of transportation, I was to be peaceable with all men, as far as it depended on me. (Romans 12:18) But, as I considered closer, what it means to have one’s foot shod, did you know that this means that we are ready to do some damage? Let me be the first to tell you that I was shocked when I found this out too.

Note what the website of Altman, Attorneys at Law stated about what it means to have one’s feet shod: “In a commonly charged scenario, a defendant’s foot can be considered a dangerous weapon if used to kick or otherwise inflict injury on the victim. This is generally referred to as “shod foot” ABDW, meaning that the defendant’s foot is shod in footwear making it capable of inflicting a greater injury than an unshod foot. The reasoning behind this charge is that a defendant wearing a heavy boot can inflict a much greater injury by kicking than a defendant wearing regular footwear or no footwear. Thus, depending on the circumstances, a jury can find that a defendant’s shod foot constitutes a dangerous weapon.” (Altman Attorneys at Law, n.d.).

So according to the attorney website the injury would come from being kicked with a shod foot. That made me laugh because I thought of how I acted when I saw a huge spider in my garden. It was on a table and it came running towards me. Actually it was trying to get away from me, but in my mind running towards me is an attack mode. So I swung to hit it, missed, and it fell on the ground and ran into the shell from one of the pecans that the squirrels had threw down from the pecan tree. So I decided to kick the shell far away from me. I’m not going to tell you that I missed with the first kick. But what I will tell you is that I definitely understood the force of the kick when I thought about how I tried to kick the shell that contained the big spider.

Here is another thing that I thought of:

We are told that the curse that was spoken over the devil when in the garden of Eden, was that the seed of the woman would crush him in the head, and he would administer to the seed a heel wound. (Genesis 3:15) I wonder now if this is why Jesus told us to have our feet shod. With the feet being shod the serpent would not be able to do much damage.

I also want to mention what the KJV say about having the feet shod at Ephesians 6:15. The feet were to be shod with the “preparation of the gospel of peace”. In other words, we were to be ready to speak God’s Word to anyone who asked of us a reason for our faith. We were to be ready to share the gospel of Christ with any and everyone.

The shield of faith:

When I was a little girl, my mother would dress me in a raincoat complete with an umbrella so that I would not get my clothes wet on those rainy days. I thought of this when I read that the shield of faith would “quench all the fiery darts of the enemy”(Ephesians 6:16) I pictured these darts raining down but not touching me because I was covered by my umbrella. Therefore, the shield, which is our faith, covers us like an umbrella; and the purpose of strengthening our faith is so that we can enlarge the shield that covers us.

Have you ever been caught out in the rain with a little umbrella that basically covers only your head and shoulders, so that if it is windy with the rain you are going to get wet?  I’m a very visual person so I am trying not to laugh as I picture that; and don’t let the umbrella fail you and turn inside out.  Ok, I’m moving on to the next piece of armor now. ..

The helmet of salvation:

This piece of armor covers your head, your brain, your mind. It addresses our thought processes. Our Heavenly Father tells us what to think upon at Philippians 4:8. He says, “whatever is true, honest, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, or praise worthy” is the things that we need to think on. This is important because it is what we think upon that gets down into our heart. As a matter of fact, Proverbs 23:7 tells us that as we think, catch this now, IN OUR HEART, so are we. So the helmet of salvation works alongside the breastplate of righteousness. It is important that we control our thoughts because what we think is what gets down into our heart; and it is what gets into our heart that, when the heart overflows, comes out of our mouths.

The helmet also covers the ears. The ears are doorkeepers (gatekeepers) to our mind. Therefore it is important that we are mindful of what we hear and listen to. There is a difference between hearing and listening, and that difference has to do with our paying attention. When we listen, we are actively paying attention to hear. Whereas when one simply hears, that does not mean that they are paying attention. God’s Word speaks of those who have ears but do not hear ( See Psalm 115:6; Isaiah 6:10; Jeremiah 5:21; Ezekiel 12:2; Matthew 13:15; Acts 28:27; Romans 11:8). God’s Word also tells us on many occasions, “Let him who have ears hear” (See Matthew 11:15; Matthew 13:9, 43: Mark 4:9, 23; Luke 14:35; Revelation 2: 7,11,17,29; Revelation 3: 6,13,22; Revelation 13:9).

But here is a verse that deals with the gatekeeper in action that one would not immediately think of. It is found at John 10:1-5 where Jesus was speaking of how the watchman (doorkeeper, gatekeeper) will only open to the one who comes in by the gate because that one is the shepherd of the sheep, and the sheep will listen to his voice. Later on, in that same chapter, Jesus states that He is the gate for the sheep (John 10:7). So, Jesus is telling us that we need to make sure that what we are hearing is truth before we follow it. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

The sword of the spirit

This might be the last piece of the armor, but it is definitely not the least of the piece. One must be careful in how they handle the sword because it is very sharp. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that the sword, which is the word of God, is sharper than a double edged sword.. We are told that it penetrates  even to dividing soul and spirit, joints, and marrow; and that it judges thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

Let me interject right here that I have not paid attention to that before in reference to who judges. The sword IS the Word of God. (Jesus is also called the Word of God). The Word of God, “…judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12) That is powerful, especially when people are quick to say, “You can’t judge me, only God can judge me.” Yet, the Word of God, whom according to John 1:2 IS God, according to Hebrews 4:12 is what judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. So if a person is speaking the Word of God to counsel and correct in a matter, and the one being spoken to is rejecting the Word of God that is being spoken, who they are really rejecting is the very God that they say can “only” correct them.  WOW! A friend of mine and I call these OOWEE moments – that moment when we understand clearly what we really hadn’t thought about previously.

The Word of God, which is the sword, is living and active (Hebrews 4:12)  and the counsel that we are given comes from what the Apostle Paul told Timothy in preparing him to be a Soldier of Christ. In 2 Timothy 2:15 we are told  to study to show ourselves approved, correctly handling the Word of truth. I would like to take this moment to encourage you to pause here and read the entire book of 2 Timothy because in that chapter Timothy is being given excellent counsel in reference to

• what it means to be CALLED to be a Soldier of Christ;
  • They must be courageous, and faithful
• what the CHARACTER of a Soldier of Christ looks like
  • They are strong, disciplined, secure and sound in their faith
  • They are also sanctified (living a holy, spiritually and morally clean life), and they serve others.
• what the Soldiers of Christ need to be CAUTIOUS  about
  • They need to be alert to the apostasy, which is the falling away from the faith, and they need to protect themselves so that they do not also fall away from the faith as many around them will have done.
• what the CHARGE (or responsibility) of the Soldier of Christ is; and,
  • Their responsibility is to preach the Word of God, and be prepared at all times  to correct, rebuke and encourage
• what COMFORTS the Soldiers of Christ can enjoy.
  • They will finish the race strong having a good finish to life
  • They will have a good future after life
  • And they will have good friends in life  

Now the reason why you will want to make sure to consider the entire book of 2 Timothy (its only 4 chapters) is because Timothy was being prepared to be a soldier for Christ; and it is only the soldiers who go out into battle, and battle victoriously.

I promise you that I am blown away right now because of all that is being revealed in the preparation of this book. When I first started writing this, my intent was to expose the giants that are walking the face of the earth right now in our day, “as it was in the days of Noah” (Matthew 24:37). Under the leading of the Holy Spirit, who is directing the writing of this book,  not only was I allowed to see giants slayers who were both male and female, and both young and old; but I was also able to see the training of a young man who was training to be a Soldier of Christ. Let’s peak in on that training. You will need your bible for this part. It is question and answer.

I hope you enjoyed the sneak peak into my upcoming book Giant Slayer.

Well, I must leave now, as I have been charged to go sit in class with Timothy, a Soldier of Christ, so that I can glean, from his lessons, what I am to share with those who have giants that they need to slay. This should be interesting.