The Shield of Heart Readiness

 Paul’s writes in Ephesians 6:18: “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.

Loren Sandford writes:

I am burdened with concern right now for the body of Christ. The days are urgent and time is limited. We need to be ready, alive and alert to the Spirit. People around us are hurting, the world rushes toward coming catastrophes, and yet I see too many believers who should know better falling into self-centered emotional turmoil, moral compromise and inconsistency at just the time when we need to be at our finest and most focused. Lives are at stake.

In these days, if we take our eyes off of our Savior for even an instant, the enemy of our soul will access our vulnerabilities and weaknesses and use them to drag us down. We will be scattered from one another, isolated and disconnected at a time when our relationships need to be firm and strong.
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/483893/32967c78b2/1604001848/a1ffaf93ef/

Being 'ready to respond' 

Standing in readiness is needed for protection and victory in times of potential physical or emotional wounding.

Agnes Sanford taught that there is a brief instant after a potential scalding, wounding, bruising when your instantaneous response determines the outcome.  So a person just after hearing this teaching scalds themselves but their instantaneous response is faith in Jesus, the cross and healing.  The outcome is a healing  claimed and no damage is done.

I now suspect the same of people hating, cursing and doing evil to us.  There must be an instant when our heart response is either like Jesus said - love, bless, pray for and do good or otherwise.  If we respond to hate with hate, to curse with animosity, to evil with the desire for revenge, then the curse will alight, the hate will harm us deeply.

However, if the heart readiness is to love - that is the 'armor we put on in the morning' - then God's shields are up, the curse does not alight, the hate hurts but does not penetrate.  We walk in victory of praise, joy and patience.

This, then is the Shield of Heart Readiness - a heart prepared with an instantaneous godly response.  When the heart is prepared this is the automatic response that occurs before you have time to think.  That is how prepared, how heart-ready, we must be.  The instantaneous response must be automatic.  Jesus' thinking must be deeply and fully ingrained in our life.  Only in that is there safety.

Therefore, everyday 'head knowledge' belief does not provide safety.  This must be habit.  It must be fully affirmed by head and heart.  Then our shields are up.  'Our shields' are the one God puts up if and when our heart is aligned with His.

George Hartwell M.Sc. Christian counsellor provides Christian counselling ( counseling / therapy ) through 90 minute in person sessions at his office in Mississauga.  As a professional Christian Marriage counsellor George provides Christian marriage counselling counseling for couples in Oakville, Mississauga, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.